In order to refine the character image and feature extraction, an improved thining algorithm of character image is proposed based on the research and analysis of the existing image thining algorithm. The algorithm constructs the thinning templates and restoring templates based on 14 neighborhoods. The algorithm not only improves the direction of the reservation template match, and completely refine the image, but also retains the advantages of other image thining algorithm skeleton axis, topology and so on. Experiments show that the algorithm is faster in the process of thinning, and maintains 8 neighborhoods connections. The result is smooth and burr-free, which is an effective algorithm to realize fast and complete thinning at the same time.