Method and System for Creating Flexible Structure Descriptions

• US 20090175532A1
• Filed: 02/02/2009
• Published: 07/09/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 08/01/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: ABBYY Development LLC
• Original Assignee: ABBYY Software
• Inventors: Zlobin, Sergey, Filimonova, Irina, Zuev, Konstantin, Tuganbaev, Diar
• Granted Patent: US 8,233,714 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 382/159
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/106 Display of layout of documents; Previewing
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 30/10 Character recognition
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 30/1452 based on positionally close symbols, e.g. amount sign or URL-specific characters
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 30/416 Extracting the logical structure, e.g. chapters, sections or page numbers; Identifying elements of the document, e.g. authors
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99933 Query processing, i.e. searching

Abstract

In one embodiment, the invention provides a method, comprising detecting data fields on a scanned image; generating a flexible document description based on the detected data fields, including creating a set of search elements for each data field, each search element having associated search criteria; and training the flexible document description using a search algorithm to detect the data fields on additional training images based on the set of search elements.

Claims

1. A method, comprising:

detecting data fields on a scanned image corresponding to a new document type;

generating a flexible document description for the new document type based on the detected data fields, including creating a set of search elements for each data field, each search element having associated search criteria; and

training the flexible document description using a search algorithm to detect the data fields on additional training images based on the set of search elements.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein training the flexible document description comprises assessing a reliability of the search criteria associated with a search element to detect a given data field on the additional images and selectively adjusting the search criteria so that it can be used to detect the given data field on the additional images within a defined reliability threshold.

3. The method of claim 1, further comprising receiving user input indicating the data fields to be detected.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the search elements comprise a type element to identify a data field by type and at least one anchor element to enable detection of a data field based on its position relative to the anchor element.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the search elements comprise a plurality of auxiliary anchor elements, each to describe a data field.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein the auxiliary anchor elements are predefined and are selected from the group consisting of Static Text, Separator, White Gap, Barcode, Character String, Paragraph, Picture, Phone, Date, Time, Currency, Logo, Group, Table, and Repeating Item.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the search criteria comprises a type of the image object to detect, its physical properties, its search area, and its spatial relationships with other elements.

8. The method of claim 7, wherein the search criteria comprises image distortion parameters to enable handling of distortions in images during conversion into electronic format.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein the image distortion parameters are selected from the group consisting of an indication of a quantity of Optical Character Recognition (OCR) errors in elements of type Static Text;

an indication of how a length of breaks in separator lines; and

an indication of an amount of noise objects in white spaces.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein the image distortion parameters are chosen automatically.

11. The method of claim 7, wherein the search area for an element is specified in terms of search constraints selected from the group consisting of an absolute search constraint specified in terms of a array of rectangles with specified coordinates;

a relative search constraint specified relative to the edges of the scanned image; and

a relative search constraint specified relative to other search elements.

12. The method of claim 11, wherein detecting the data fields comprises detecting image objects capable of distinguishing the new document type from other document types.

13. The method of claim 12, wherein the image objects are selected from the group consisting of titles, and logos.

14. A computer-readable medium having stored thereon, a sequence of instructions which when executed by a system, causes the system to perform a method, comprising:

detecting data fields on a scanned image;

generating a flexible document description based on the detected data fields, including creating a set of search elements for each data field, each search element having associated search criteria; and

training the flexible document description using a search algorithm to detect the data fields on additional training images based on the set of search elements.

15. The computer-readable medium of claim 14, wherein training the flexible document description comprises assessing a reliability of the search criteria associated with a search element to detect a given data field on the additional images and selectively adjusting the search criteria so that it can be used to detect the given data field on the additional images within a defined reliability threshold.

16. The computer-readable medium of claim 14, wherein the method further comprises receiving user input indicating the data fields to be detected.

17. The computer-readable medium of claim 14, wherein the search elements comprise a type element to identify a data field by type and at least one anchor element to enable detection of a data field based on its position relative to the anchor element.

18. The computer-readable medium of claim 14, wherein the search elements comprise a plurality of auxiliary anchor elements, each to describe a data field.

19. The method of claim 18, wherein the auxiliary anchor elements are predefined and are selected from the group consisting of Static Text, Separator, White Gap, Barcode, Character String, Paragraph, Picture, Phone, Date, Time, Currency, Logo, Group, Table, and Repeating Item.

20. A system, comprising:

a processor; and

a memory coupled to the processor, the memory storing instructions which when executed by the processor causes the system to perform a method comprising;

detecting data fields on a scanned image;

generating a flexible document description based on the detected data fields, including creating a set of search elements for each data field, each search element having associated search criteria; and

training the flexible document description using a search algorithm to detect the data fields on additional training images based on the set of search elements.

21. The system of claim 20, wherein training the flexible document description comprises assessing a reliability of the search criteria associated with a search element to detect a given data field on the additional images and selectively adjusting the search criteria so that it can be used to detect the given data field on the additional images within a defined reliability threshold.

22. The system of claim 20, wherein the method further comprises receiving user input indicating the data fields to be detected.