Relabelling of tokenized symbols in fontless structured document image representations

• US 20010043349A1
• Filed: 06/18/2001
• Published: 11/22/2001
• Est. Priority Date: 05/23/1996
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Xerox Corporation (Xerox Holdings Corp.)
• Original Assignee: Xerox Corporation (Xerox Holdings Corp.)
• Inventors: Brown, John Seely, Bobrow, Daniel G., Rucklidge, William J., Huttenlocher, Daniel P.
• Granted Patent: US 6,529,285 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 358/1.12
• CPC Class Codes: G06K 15/02 using printers
• CPC Class Codes: G06K 2215/0011 characterised by a particular command or data flow, e.g. Page Description Language, configuration commands
• CPC Class Codes: G06K 2215/0065 Page or partial page composition
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 11/00 2D [Two Dimensional] image generation
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 11/60 Editing figures and text; Combining figures or text

Abstract

A processor is provided with a first set of digital information that includes a first structured representation of a document. From the first set of digital information, the processor produces a second set of digital information that includes a second structured representation of the document. The second structured representation is a lossless representation and includes a set of tokens and a set of positions. At least one token in the plurality of tokens has an associated semantic label which may be a character code associated with various font types in the second structured representation of the document. The semantic label may be obtained and stored in the second structured representation of the document by a computer program. The first and second representations may be resolution dependent structured representations and have, respectively, first and second characteristic resolutions. The first representation, but not the second, is provided in digital form to an untrusted recipient. A search for particular content of the second representation, including semantic labels, is requested by the recipient. A highlighted version of the first representation of the document is then provided to the recipient.

Claims

1. A method comprising the steps of:

providing a processor with a first set of digital information comprising a first structured representation of a document, a plurality of image collections being obtainable from the first structured representation, each such obtainable image collection comprising at least one image, each image in each such collection being an image of at least a portion of the document;

with a processor, producing from the first set of digital information a second set of digital information comprising a second structured representation of the document, the second structured representation being a lossless representation of a particular image collection, the particular image collection being one of the plurality of image collections obtainable from the first structured representation, the second structured representation including a plurality of tokens and a plurality of positions, wherein at least one token in the plurality of tokens has an associated semantic label, the second set of digital information being produced by

extracting the plurality of tokens from the first structured representation, each token comprising a set of pixel data representing a subimage of the particular image collection, and

determining the plurality of positions from the first structured representation, each position being a position of a token subimage in the particular image collection, a token subimage being one of the subimages from one of the tokens, at least one token subimage having a plurality of pixels and occurring at more than one position in the image collection;

and

making the second set of digital information thus produced available for further use.

2. The method of

claim 1

, wherein the providing step further comprises providing the processor with a first structured representation selected from the group consisting of a page description language representation, a document exchange format representation, a print control language representation, and a markup language representation.

3. The method of

claim 1

, wherein the providing step further comprises providing the processor with a first structured representation that is an original representation of the document, the original representation being a representation generated by a computer program wherein the document is created.

4. The method of

claim 1

, wherein the providing step further comprises providing the processor with a font-based first structured representation of the document, and wherein the producing step further comprises producing a second structured representation of the document, including font information.

5. The method of

claim 1

, wherein the associated semantic label includes a numeric code representing a character.

6. The method of

claim 5

, wherein the numeric code is an ASCII code.

7. The method of

claim 5

wherein:

the semantic label is stored in a residual block of the second structured representation of the document.

8. The method of

claim 1

, wherein the producing step further comprises providing a font specific optical character recognizer software program to the processor to obtain the associated semantic label.

9. The method of

claim 1

, further comprising the step of:

searching the second structured representation of the document using the associated semantic label.

10. An article of manufacture comprising an information storage medium wherein is stored information comprising a computer program for facilitating production by a processor of a second set of digital information from a first set of digital information,

the first set of digital information comprising a first structured representation of a document, the first structured representation having a plurality of image collections, each such obtainable image collection comprising at least one image, each image in each such collection being an image of at least a portion of the document;

the second set of digital information comprising a second structured representation of a document, the second structured representation being a lossless representation of a particular image collection, the particular image collection being one of the plurality of image collections obtainable from the first structured representation, the second structured representation including a plurality of tokens and a plurality of positions, wherein at least one token in the plurality of tokens has an associated semantic label,

each token comprising a set of pixel data representing a subimage of the particular image collection,

each position being a position of a token subimage in the particular image collection, a token subimage being one of the subimages from one of the tokens,

at least one token subimage having a plurality of pixels and occurring at more than one position in the particular image collection.

11. An apparatus, comprising:

a processor;

an instruction store, coupled to the processor, comprising an article of manufacture as recited in

claim 10

; and

a data store, coupled to the processor, wherein the first and second sets of digital information can be stored.

12. The apparatus of

claim 11

, wherein the data store includes at least one component selected from the group consisting of a memory, a consistent storage device, a server computer, a computer network, and a portion of a computer network.

13. The apparatus of

claim 11

, and further comprising:

a device, coupled to the processor, for outputting the second set of digital information.

14. The article of manufacture of

claim 11

, and further comprising:

a computer program, stored in the instruction store, for searching the second structured representation of the document using the associated semantic label.

15. The apparatus of

claim 11

, wherein the associated semantic label includes a numeric code representing a character.

16. The apparatus of

claim 15

, wherein the numeric code is an ASCII code.

17. The apparatus of

claim 16

, wherein the semantic label is stored in a residual block of the second structured representation of the document.

18. A method comprising the steps of:

providing a processor with a first set of digital information comprising a first structured representation (hereinafter “

the starting representation”

) of a document, the starting representation being a resolution-independent representation, a plurality of image collections being obtainable from the starting representation, each such obtainable image collection comprising at least one image, each image in each such collection being an image of at least a portion of the document, each image in each such collection having a characteristic resolution;

with a processor, producing from the first set of digital information a second set of digital information comprising a second structured representation (hereinafter, “

the low-resolution representation”

) of the document, the low-resolution representation being a lossless representation of a particular image collection (hereinafter, “

the low-resolution image collection”

), the low-resolution image collection being one of the plurality of image collections obtainable from the starting representation, each image in the low-resolution image collection having a first characteristic resolution (hereinafter, “

the low resolution”

), the low-resolution representation including a plurality of tokens (hereinafter “

the low-resolution tokens”

) and a plurality of positions, the second set of digital information being produced by

extracting the low-resolution tokens from the starting representation, each low-resolution token comprising a set of pixel data representing a subimage of the low-resolution image collection, and

determining from the starting representation the plurality of positions of the low-resolution representation, each position of the low-resolution representation being a position of a subimage (hereinafter, “

the low-resolution subimage”

) in the low-resolution image collection, a low-resolution subimage being one of the subimages from one of the low-resolution tokens, at least one low-resolution subimage having a plurality of pixels and occurring at more than one position in the image collection;

with a processor, producing from the first set of digital information a third set of digital information comprising a third structured representation (hereinafter, “

the high-resolution representation”

) of the document, the high-resolution representation being a lossless representation of a particular image collection (hereinafter, “

the high-resolution image collection”

), the high-resolution image collection being one of the plurality of image collections obtainable from the starting representation, each image in the high-resolution image collection having a second characteristic resolution (hereinafter, “

the high resolution”

), the high resolution being greater than the low resolution, the high-resolution representation including a plurality of tokens (hereinafter “

the high-resolution tokens”

) and a plurality of positions wherein at least one high-resolution token in the plurality of tokens has an associated semantic label, the third set of digital information being produced by

extracting the high-resolution tokens from the starting representation, each high-resolution token comprising a set of pixel data representing a subimage of the high-resolution image collection, and

determining from the starting representation the plurality of positions of the high-resolution representation, each position of the high-resolution representation being a position of a subimage (hereinafter, “

the high-resolution subimage”

) in the high-resolution image collection, a high-resolution subimage being one of the subimages from one of the high-resolution tokens, at least one high-resolution subimage having a plurality of pixels and occurring at more than one position in the image collection; and

making the second and third sets of digital information thus produced available for further use.

19. The method of

claim 18

, wherein the providing step further comprises providing the processor with a starting representation selected from the group consisting of a page description language representation, a document exchange format representation, a print control language representation, and a markup language representation.

20. The method of

claim 18

, wherein the providing step further comprises providing the processor with a first structured representation that is an original representation of the document, the original representation being a representation generated by a computer program wherein the document is created.

21. The method of

claim 18

, wherein the step of making the second and third sets of digital information available for further use comprises:

producing from the second set of digital information a representation of the document at the low resolution in a first medium; and

producing from the third set of digital information a representation of the document at the high resolution in a second medium.

22. The method of

claim 21

wherein:

the step of producing the representation of the document at the low resolution comprises displaying the document at the low resolution with a visual display; and

,

the step of producing the representation of the document at the high resolution comprises printing the document at the high resolution with a printer.

23. The method of

claim 18

, wherein the high resolution representation is searched for content and the method further comprises providing an emphasized representation of the document from the low representation of the document.