This paper proposes a gradation image processing method for the development of a Road Sign Recognition Platform (RReP), which aims to facilitate the rapid and accurate management and surveying of approximately 160,000 road signs installed along the highways, national roadways, and local roads in the cities, districts (gun), and provinces (do) of Korea. RReP is based on GPS(Global Positioning System), IMU(Inertial Measurement Unit), INS(Inertial Navigation System), DMI(Distance Measurement Instrument), and lasers, and uses an imagery information collection/classification module to allow the automatic recognition of signs, the collection of shapes, pole locations, and sign-type data, and the creation of road sign registers, by extracting basic data related to the shape and sign content, and automated database design. Image division and merging, which were applied in this study, produce superior results compared with local binarization method in terms of speed. At the results, larger texts area were found in images, the accuracy of text recognition was improved when images had been gradated. Multi-threshold values of natural scene images are used to improve the extraction rate of texts and figures based on pattern recognition.