Methods and apparatus for locating and identifying text labels in digital images
First Claim
1. A method of text label identification comprising the steps of:
- identifying individual components of a digital image;
examining each component to determine whether or not the component is a text component and identifying each text component;
performing connected component analysis on each text component to produce grouped text components; and
comparing each grouped text component against predetermined criteria to determine whether the grouped text component is a label and identifying each grouped text component meeting the criteria as a label.
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Accused Products
Abstract
Techniques for identifying labels appearing in images are described. A digital image is analyzed to identify individual components. Each of the individual components is analyzed to determine whether or not it is a text component by comparing it against criteria such as size, aspect ratio, and proximity to other components. Each component identified as a text component is compared against criteria such as size in order to identify it as a label or not. Location coordinates of each label are stored in association with the label and optical character recognition is performed on the labels. Once the labels are identified, each image can be used as an online catalog page. For example, an image may be used to construct a web page containing pictures of available products with each label serving as a hypertext link to retrieve further information about the product or to enter an order for the product. Automatically identifying labels simplifies the conversion of preexisting paper catalog pages to online catalog pages or similar digitized images.
33 Citations
15 Claims
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1. A method of text label identification comprising the steps of:
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identifying individual components of a digital image;
examining each component to determine whether or not the component is a text component and identifying each text component;
performing connected component analysis on each text component to produce grouped text components; and
comparing each grouped text component against predetermined criteria to determine whether the grouped text component is a label and identifying each grouped text component meeting the criteria as a label. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 13, 14, 15)
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12. A label identification system comprising:
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digital storage for storing digital images;
a processor for processing each of the images to identify labels appearing on each image, the processor being operative to identify each individual component of the image, to identify each of the individual components as a text component or a non text component and to identify each text component as a label or a non-label.
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Specification