Method for processing large-size postal objects in a sorting installation

• US 20030048925A1
• Filed: 09/25/2002
• Published: 03/13/2003
• Est. Priority Date: 07/25/2000
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Solystic
• Original Assignee: Solystic
• Inventors: Caillon, Christophe, Lagrange, Herve
• Granted Patent: US 7,065,229 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 382/101
• CPC Class Codes: B07C 3/20 Arrangements for facilitating the visual reading of addresses, e.g. display arrangements coding stations
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 10/987 with the intervention of an operator
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 30/424 Postal images, e.g. labels or addresses on parcels or postal envelopes

Abstract

The method of processing postal objects of large size in order to read automatically a postal address (AD) on each object consists in acquiring a digital image of each object at a certain level of resolution; in detecting in said image one or more zones of interest (ZI) apparently containing a postal address; in performing automatic address recognition on each zone of interest in order to extract a postal address (AD) of said object, and in the event of said step failing, in displaying each zone of interest (ZI) on a screen so that a video-coding operator can read the postal address (AD) of said object. Each zone of interest (ZI) is displayed on the screen on a screen context background (F) that is representative of the object but at a level of resolution that is lower than said certain level of resolution of the digital image. In this way, the video-coding operator has an overall view of the detected zones of interest, thus making it easier to read the postal address of the object.

Claims

1. A method of processing postal objects, in particular packets, in order to read a postal address (AD) automatically on each object, the method including a step of assistance by video-coding, and consisting for each object in performing the following steps:

a) acquiring (10) a digital image of the object at a certain level of resolution;

b) detecting (20) in said digital image of the object one or more zones of interest (ZI) of the image each apparently containing a postal address;

c) applying an automatic address recognition algorithm to each zone of interest detected in the image of the object in order to extract a postal address (AD) of said object; and

in which in the event of the step (30) of automatic address recognition failing, each zone of interest (ZI) is displayed (40) on a screen of a video-coding station in order to enable an operator to perform semi-automatic processing (50) to read the postal address (AD) of said object, the method being characterized in that in the event of the step (40) of automatic address recognition failing, each zone of interest (ZI) is displayed on the screen on a screen context background (F) representative of said digital image of the object but at a level of resolution that is lower than said certain level of resolution of the digital image.

2. The method of claim 1, in which all of the zones of interest detected in a digital image of an object are displayed together on said screen context background in the event of the automatic address recognition step failing.

3. A method according to claim 1 or claim 2, in which each zone of interest is displayed on the screen at an intermediate level of resolution higher than the level of resolution for the screen context background and lower than the level of resolution for the digital image of the object.