Systems and methods of processing scanned data

• US 20060215231A1
• Filed: 01/11/2006
• Published: 09/28/2006
• Est. Priority Date: 03/24/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Tungsten Automation Corp.
• Original Assignee: Kofax Incorporated
• Inventors: Borrey, Roland G., Schmidtler, Mauritius A.R., Fechter, Joel S., Taylor, Robert A., Asuri, Hari S.
• Granted Patent: US 8,749,839 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 358/448
• CPC Class Codes: G06K 15/407 Managing marking material, e.g. checking available colours
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 5/00 Image enhancement or restoration
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 10/242 by image rotation, e.g. by 90 degrees
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 1/40 Picture signal circuits H04N1/387 takes precedence

Abstract

An efficient method and system to enhance digital acquisition devices for analog data is presented. The enhancements offered by the method and system are available to the user in local as well as in remote deployments yielding efficiency gains for a large variety of business processes. The quality enhancements of the acquired digital data are achieved efficiently by employing virtual reacquisition. The method of virtual reacquisition renders unnecessary the physical reacquisition of the analog data in case the digital data obtained by the acquisition device are of insufficient quality. The method and system allows multiple users to access the same acquisition device for analog data. In some embodiments, one or more users can virtually reacquire data provided by multiple analog or digital sources. The acquired raw data can be processed by each user according to his personal preferences and/or requirements. The preferred processing settings and attributes are determined interactively in real time as well as non real time, automatically and a combination thereof.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented data processing method comprising:

storing raw or normalized data from a data capture device in a computer accessible storage medium;

analyzing at least portions of the raw or normalized data with a first analytic engine to determine whether the raw data is within a first set of parameters and if not, generating with the first analytic engine a first set of processor settings;

processing the raw or normalized data with the first set of processor settings; and

analyzing at least portions of the processed data with a second analytic engine to determine whether the processed data is within a second set of parameters and if not, generating with the second analytic engine a second set of processor settings to reprocess the raw or normalized data.

2. The method of claim 1 further comprising reprocessing the raw or normalized data with the second set of processor settings.

3. The method of claim 2 further comprising repeating the steps of:

analyzing at least portions of the processed data with the second analytic engine to determine whether the processed data is within the second set of parameters;

generating with the second analytic engine the second set of processor settings to reprocess the raw data; and

reprocessing the raw data with the second set of processor settings until the processed data is with the second set of parameters.

4. The method of claim 1 wherein the data capture device is a scanner, a camera, an infrared camera, an acoustic camera, a digital camera, a video recorder, an acoustic sensor, or a facsimile machine.

5. The method of claim 1 wherein processing comprises applying at least one image processing algorithm.

6. The method of claim 1 wherein processing comprises applying at least data processing algorithm.

7. The method of claim 1 wherein processing comprising applying at least one of a detection orientation algorithm, a detect bleed-through algorithm, a color detection algorithm, a background smoothing algorithm, and a detection of scanned page boundaries algorithm.

8. The method of claim 1 wherein the first set of parameters is associated with raw or normalized data analyses.

9. The method of claim 1 wherein the second set of parameters is associated with processed data analyses.

10. The method of claim 1 wherein the second set of parameters is associated with processed data analyses with regard to target data.

11. The method of claim 1 wherein the second set of parameters is a predetermined metric.

12. A data processing system comprising:

raw or normalized data from a data capture device wherein the raw or normalized data is stored in a computer accessible storage medium;

a first acquisition controller in communication with the raw or normalized data, the first acquisition controller configured to analyze at least portions of the raw or normalized data to determine whether the raw or normalized data is within a first set of parameters and if not, the first acquisition controller generates a first set of processor settings;

a processor in communication with the first acquisition controller wherein the processor is configured to process the raw or normalized data with the first set of processor settings; and

a second acquisition controller in communication with the processor, the second acquisition controller configured to analyze at least portions of the processed data to determine whether the processed data is within a second set of parameters and if not, the second acquisition controller generates a second set of processor settings that the processor uses to reprocess the raw data.

13. The data processing system of claim 12 wherein the data acquisition devise is a scanner, a camera, an infrared camera, an acoustic camera, a digital camera, a video recorder, a temperature sensor, an acoustic sensor, or a facsimile machine.

14. The data processing system of claim 12 wherein processing comprises applying at least one image processing algorithm.

15. The data processing system of claim 12 wherein processing comprises applying at least one data processing algorithm.

16. The data processing system of claim 12 wherein processing comprising applying at least one of a detection orientation algorithm, a detect bleed-through algorithm, a color detection algorithm, a background smoothing algorithm, and a detection of scanned page boundaries algorithm.

17. The data processing system of claim 12 wherein the first set of parameters is associated with processed data analyses.

18. The data processing system of claim 12 wherein the first set of parameters is associated with processed data analyses with regard to target data.

19. The data processing system of claim 12 wherein the second set of parameters is associated with qualitative analyses.

20. A document processing system comprising:

document data from a data capture device wherein the document data is stored in a computer accessible storage medium;

a first acquisition controller in communication with the document data, the first acquisition controller configured to analyze at least portions of the document data to determine whether the document data is within a first set of parameters and if not, the first acquisition controller generates a first set of processor settings;

a processor in communication with the first acquisition controller wherein the processor is configured to process the document data with the first set of processor settings; and

a second acquisition controller in communication with the processor, the second acquisition controller configured to analyze at least portions of the processed document data to determine whether the processed document data is within a second set of parameters and if not the second acquisition controller generates a second set of processor settings that the processor uses to reprocess the document data.

21. The document processing system of claim 20 wherein the data capture devise is a scanner, a camera, an infrared camera, an acoustic camera, a digital camera, a video recorder, an acoustic sensor, or a facsimile machine.

22. The document processing system of claim 20 wherein processing comprises applying at least one image processing algorithm.

23. The document processing system of claim 20 wherein processing comprising applying at least one of a detection orientation algorithm, a detect bleed-through algorithm, a color detection algorithm, a background smoothing algorithm, and a detection of scanned page boundaries algorithm.

24. The document processing system of claim 20 wherein the first set of parameters is associated with geometric analyses.

25. The document processing system of claim 20 wherein the second set of parameters is associated with qualitative analyses.

26. The document processing system of claim 20 wherein the second set of parameters is associated with qualitative analyses with regard to optical character recognition.

27. The document processing system of claim 20 wherein the second set of parameters is associated with qualitative analyses with regard to classification.

28. The document processing system of claim 20 wherein the second set of parameters is associated with qualitative analyses with regard to text classification.

29. The document processing system of claim 20 wherein the second set of parameters is associated with qualitative analyses with regard to image classification.

30. The document processing system of claim 20 wherein the second set of parameters is associated with qualitative analyses with regard to form recognition.