Method and system for processing employment related images
First Claim
1. A computer-implemented method of processing images of printed publications, the method comprising the steps of:
- scanning a printed publication to create a first digital image of a portion of the publication;
receiving location information from a user identifying a location of an article or advertisement in the digital image;
creating a second digital image from the first digital image, wherein the second digital image corresponds to a portion of the first digital image defined by the location information;
processing the second digital image to generate text data corresponding to text contained in the second image, associating the text data with the second image, and storing the text data and the second image in a database; and
presenting the second image to a user if the text data matches a search parameter submitted by a user.
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Accused Products
Abstract
A method and computer program enable the electronic capture and archiving of portions of printed publications for electronic searching and retrieval via a computer network. Employment-related sections of a plurality of printed publications are scanned to create a master digital image for each publication. Each master image is surveyed by an operator to identify locations of individual articles and advertisements contained in the image. A plurality of specific images are created from each master image, wherein each specific image contains a single article or advertisement. An operator defines a category, subcategory, and geographic location of each specific image, and each image is processed by optical character recognition software to determine text contained in the image. An end user searches the articles and advertisements according to category, subcategory, geographic location, and text, and views each specific image matching the user'"'"'s search.
22 Citations
18 Claims
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1. A computer-implemented method of processing images of printed publications, the method comprising the steps of:
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scanning a printed publication to create a first digital image of a portion of the publication;
receiving location information from a user identifying a location of an article or advertisement in the digital image;
creating a second digital image from the first digital image, wherein the second digital image corresponds to a portion of the first digital image defined by the location information;
processing the second digital image to generate text data corresponding to text contained in the second image, associating the text data with the second image, and storing the text data and the second image in a database; and
presenting the second image to a user if the text data matches a search parameter submitted by a user. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10)
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11. A method of electronically archiving employment-related information from a plurality of printed publications, the method comprising the steps of:
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reviewing each of the printed publications to identify relevant portions containing employment-related information;
electronically scanning the relevant portions of each of the printed publications to create at least one master digital image associated with each publication;
surveying each master digital image to identify coordinates corresponding to one or more employment-related articles or advertisements contained in the image;
creating a plurality of specific images from each master image, wherein each specific image corresponds to a single article or advertisement defined by the coordinates;
processing each specific image using a computer to generate text data corresponding to text contained in the specific image, associating the text data with the specific image from which it was generated, and storing the text data and the specific images in a database; and
presenting a specific image to a user if the text data corresponding to the specific image corresponds to a search parameter submitted by a user. - View Dependent Claims (12, 13, 14)
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15. A computer-readable medium encoded with a computer program for enabling a computer to process images of printed publications, the computer program comprising:
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a scanning routine for generating a new master image of a printed publication by scanning a portion of the printed publication;
an image enhancing routine for processing the new master image to generate an enhanced master image that is more easily read by a person and more easily processed by a computer, and for storing the enhanced image in a digital storage medium;
a crop coordinates routine for presenting the master digital image to a user and receiving from the user coordinate information identifying a plurality of articles or advertisements contained in the master image;
a crop image routine for generating a specific image corresponding to the plurality of articles or advertisements contained in the master image according to the coordinate information;
a character recognition routine for generating text data corresponding to text contained in the specific image and associating the text data with the specific image from which it was generated; and
a workflow routine for automatically communicating the new master image generated by the scanning routine to the image enhancing routine, for automatically communicating the enhanced image to the crop coordinates routine, for automatically communicating the enhanced image and the coordinate information to the crop image routine, for automatically communicating the specific image generated by the crop image routine to the text processing routine, and for automatically storing the specific image and the associated text data generated by the character recognition routine in a searchable database. - View Dependent Claims (16, 17, 18)
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Specification