CHARACTER RECOGNITION METHOD, CHARACTER RECOGNITION APPARATUS AND FINANCIAL APPARATUS

• US 20140037181A1
• Filed: 07/31/2013
• Published: 02/06/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 07/31/2012
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: ATEC AP Co., Ltd. (ATEC T& Co., Ltd.)
• Original Assignee: LG CNS Company Limited (LG Corporation)
• Inventors: KOO, Beum Yong
• Granted Patent: US 9,563,811 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 382/135
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 30/10 Character recognition
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 30/15 Cutting or merging image elements, e.g. region growing, watershed or clustering-based techniques
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 30/166 Normalisation of pattern dimensions
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 30/224 of printed characters having additional code marks or containing code marks
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 30/244 using graphical properties, e.g. alphabet type or font

Abstract

A character recognition method for recognizing a character of a medium is provided. A character image of an individual character from a medium is acquired and the character image is read out step by step to determine the character according to a hierarchical structure in which a set of predetermined characters are hierarchically classified into a plurality of groups configured of main groups and sub groups.

Claims

1. A character recognition apparatus, comprising:

an image acquisition unit configured to acquire a character image of an individual character from a medium; and

a character determination unit configured to determine the individual character from the character image according to a hierarchical structure in which a set of predetermined characters are hierarchically classified into a plurality of groups configured of main groups and sub groups.

2. The character recognition apparatus of claim 1, wherein the character determination unit compares any one of the number of character pixels the number of background pixels, and a ratio of the number of character pixels to the number of background pixels in a predetermined area of the character image with a reference value according to each of hierarchical layers in the hierarchical structure and determines the individual character based on a comparison result.

3. The character recognition apparatus of claim 1, wherein the hierarchical structure classifies the set of predetermined characters into the plurality of groups based on similarity of shapes between characters included in the set of predetermined characters.

4. The character recognition apparatus of claim 1, wherein the character determination unit determines a group in which the character image is included among the plurality of groups, and the individual character of the character image is determined as one among characters included in the determined group.

5. The character recognition apparatus of claim 1, wherein the hierarchical structure hierarchically classifies numbers 0 to 9 into the plurality of groups configured of main groups and sub groups, and

the character determination unit determines a specific alphabet as a specific number when the character determination unit reads out a character image of the specific alphabet using the hierarchical structure.

6. The character recognition apparatus of claim 1, wherein the hierarchical structure hierarchically classifies numbers 0 to 9 into the plurality of groups configured of main groups and sub groups, and

the character determination unit determines Alphabet E as number 2 when the character determination unit reads out a character image of Alphabet E using the hierarchical structure.

7. The character recognition apparatus of claim 6, wherein the hierarchical structure hierarchically classifies Alphabets A to Z into the plurality of groups configured of main groups and sub groups, and

the character determination unit determines number 8 as Alphabet B when the character determination unit reads out a character image of number 8 using the hierarchical structure.

8. The character recognition apparatus of claim 1, wherein the character determination unit determines the individual character using at least one template according to kinds of characters included in the set of predetermined characters.

9. The character recognition apparatus of claim 1, wherein the character determination unit determines a predetermined alphabet character on the same digit of different media in a set of predetermined number characters when the character recognition apparatus determines the individual character on the different media predetermined times or more.

10. The character recognition apparatus of claim 9, wherein the same digit of different media is a last digit of a serial number, and when the predetermined Alphabet character comprises Alphabet E, K or C, the set of predetermined number characters comprises 5, 6, and 2.

11. The character recognition apparatus of claim 9, wherein the same digit of different media is a last digit of a serial number, and when the predetermined Alphabet character comprises Alphabet E, the set of predetermined number characters comprises 2.

12. The character recognition apparatus of claim 9, wherein the same digit of different media is a last digit of a serial number, and when the predetermined Alphabet character comprises Alphabet A, B, D, H, or J, the set of predetermined number characters comprises 3, 4, 8, and 9.

13. The character recognition apparatus of claim 9, wherein the same digit of different media is a last digit of a serial number, and when the predetermined Alphabet character comprises Alphabet L, the set of predetermined number characters comprises 1 and 7.

14. The character recognition apparatus of claim 1, wherein the medium is a first country'"'"'s bill in which an Alphabet character of a serial number of a second country'"'"'s bill is replaced on a number character digit of a serial number of the first country'"'"'s bill, and

when the character recognition apparatus recognizes the medium, the character determination unit determines the Alphabet character of the serial number of the second country'"'"'s bill as a number in a set including one or more among numbers 0 to 9.

15. The character recognition apparatus of claim 14, wherein the character image of an Alphabet character of the serial number of the second country'"'"' bill replaced on the number character digit of the serial number of the first country'"'"'s bill includes a background pixel having a pixel value of 200 or more and a character pixel having a pixel value of 30 or less.

16. A financing apparatus, comprising:

a medium input/output unit configured to deposit or withdraw a medium including characters;

a character recognition apparatus configured to acquire a character image of an individual character from the medium, and read out the character image to determine the characters according to a hierarchic structure in which a set of predetermined characters is hierarchically classified into a plurality of groups configured of main groups and sub groups; and

a controller configured to control operations of the medium input/output unit and the character recognition apparatus.

17. A financing apparatus, comprising:

a medium input/output unit configured to deposit or withdraw a medium in which different kinds of characters having different sizes are included; and

a character recognition apparatus configured to acquire an image of the medium, acquire a character string image from the acquired image, and acquire an character image of an individual character based on the character string image to determine the individual character from the character image.

18. The financing apparatus of claim 17, wherein the character recognition apparatus primarily determines the individual character from the character image, secondarily determines a non-determined character according to a primary determination result, and thirdly re-determines a portion of individual characters among primarily determined characters.

19. The financing apparatus of claim 17, wherein the character recognition apparatus thirdly determines error-prone characters in the total characters included in the character image.

20. The character recognition apparatus of claim 17, wherein the character recognition apparatus primarily, secondarily, and thirdly determines the characters using a plurality of templates, and the templates used in the primary, secondary, and third determinations are different in shapes and the number.