Method and apparatus for portably recognizing text in an image sequence of scene imagery

• US 20050123200A1
• Filed: 11/22/2004
• Published: 06/09/2005
• Est. Priority Date: 09/22/2000
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: SRI International, Inc.
• Original Assignee: SRI International, Inc.
• Inventors: Gallagher, Paul K., Myers, Gregory K.
• Granted Patent: US 7,171,046 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 382/182
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 20/63 Scene text, e.g. street names
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 30/10 Character recognition
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 30/1478 of characters or characters lines
• CPC Class Codes: G08G 1/0962 having an indicator mounted inside the vehicle, e.g. giving voice messages

Abstract

An apparatus and a concomitant method for portably detecting and recognizing text information in a captured imagery. The present invention is a portable device that is capable of capturing imagery and is also capable of detecting and extracting text information from the captured imagery. The portable device contains an image capturing sensor, a text detection module, an OCR module, a storage device and means for presenting the output to the user or other devices.

Claims

1. Method for portably recognizing text in a captured imagery, said method comprising the steps of:

(a) capturing an imagery having text information using a portable device;

(b) portably detecting a text region in at least two frames of the captured imagery in real time;

(c) applying optical character recognition (OCR) processing to said detected text region to produce recognized text for each of said frames;

(d) providing said single recognized text as an output of said portable device; and

(e) correlating supplemental information in accordance with said recognized text.

2. Apparatus for portably recognizing text in a captured imagery, said apparatus comprising:

means for capturing an imagery having text information using a portable device;

means for portably detecting a text region in the captured imagery in real time;

means for applying optical character recognition (OCR) processing to said detected text region to produce recognized text;

means for correlating supplemental information in accordance with said recognized text; and

means for providing said recognized text as an output of said portable device.