SYSTEMS AND METHODS OF PROCESSING SCANNED DATA

• US 20140233068A1
• Filed: 04/30/2014
• Published: 08/21/2014
• 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., Taylor, Robert A., Fechter, Joel S., Asuri, Hari S.
• Granted Patent: US 9,129,210 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 358/2.1
• 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

1-30. -30. (canceled)

31. A method, comprising:

receiving data from a data capture device;

analyzing at least portions of the received data to determine whether the data is within a first set of parameters, and if not;

generating a first set of processor settings in response to determining the received data is not within the first set of parameters;

processing the received data with the first set of processor settings; and

analyzing at least portions of the processed data to determine whether the processed data is within a second set of parameters, and if not;

generating a second set of processor settings to reprocess the received data; and

reprocessing the received data using the second set of processor settings; and

outputting at least one of the received data, the processed data, and the reprocessed data for inspection by a user;

wherein the second set of parameters is different than the first set of parameters,

wherein the second set of parameters comprises a predetermined metric, and

wherein at least one of the first set of processor settings and the second set of processor settings relate to one or more image characteristics selected from;

brightness, contrast, gamma, erosion, orientation, segmentation, saturation, color rendering, resolution, warp angle, skew angle, despeckling, dilation and sequence detection.

32. The method as recited in claim 31, wherein a first analytic engine is used to perform:

the analyzing the at least portions of the received data to determine whether the data is within the first set of parameters; and

the generating the first set of processor settings in response to determining the data is not within the first set of parameters.

33. The method as recited in claim 32, wherein the first analytic engine is also used to perform the reprocessing.

34. The method as recited in claim 32, further comprising sending the second set of processor settings and metadata relating to the received data to the first analytic engine.

35. The method as recited in claim 34, further wherein the reprocessing is based at least in part on the metadata.

36. The method as recited in claim 34, further comprising displaying the metadata and at least some of the received data;

and

receiving user input relating to at least one of the displayed metadata and the displayed data.

37. The method as recited in claim 34, wherein the metadata comprise one or more of:

a tag identifying a subsection of the data;

a tag identifying a storage location of the data;

a sequence number;

an indicator corresponding to a beginning of a data band;

an indicator corresponding to an end of the data band; and

a pointer corresponding to a second data band.

38. The method as recited in claim 34, further comprising storing the metadata in a computer accessible storage medium, the metadata relating to one or more of the received data and the processed data.

39. The method as recited in claim 31, wherein a second analytic engine is used to perform:

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

the generating the second set of processor settings in response to determining the data is not within the second set of parameters.

40. The method as recited in claim 31, wherein a first analytic engine is used to perform:

the analyzing the at least portions of the received data to determine whether the data is within the first set of parameters;

the generating the first set of processor settings in response to determining the data is not within the first set of parameters; and

the reprocessing; and

wherein second analytic engine is used to perform;

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

the generating the second set of processor settings in response to determining the data is not within the second set of parameters.

41. The method as recited in claim 31, wherein the processing comprises applying one or more algorithms to the received data, the algorithm(s) being selected from:

a detection orientation algorithm, a detect bleed-through algorithm, a background smoothing algorithm, and a detection of page boundaries algorithm.

42. The method as recited in claim 31, wherein the reprocessing comprises applying one or more algorithms to the processed data, the algorithm(s) being selected from:

a detection orientation algorithm, a detect bleed-through algorithm, a background smoothing algorithm, and a detection of page boundaries algorithm.

43. The method as recited in claim 31, wherein at least one of the analyzing at least portions of the received data and the analyzing at least portions of the processed data comprises performing one or more analyses selected from:

streak detection;

blank page detection;

shadow detection;

color representation conversion;

luminescence measurement;

grayscale intensity histogram analysis; and

color intensity histogram analysis.

44. The method as recited in claim 31, wherein the data capture device comprises a mobile phone.

45. The method as recited in claim 31, further comprising at least one of:

alerting the user that the received data is potentially of low quality in response to determining the received data is not within the first set of parameters; and

alerting the user that the processed data is potentially of low quality in response to determining the processed data is not within the second set of parameters.

46. The method as recited in claim 31 further comprising:

receiving third processor settings from the user at least partially in response to the alerting, and

repeating the reprocessing using the third processor settings received from the user.

47. The method as recited in claim 31, further comprising repeating the steps of:

analyzing at least portions of the processed data to determine whether the processed data is within the second set of parameters, and if not;

generating the second set of processor settings to reprocess the received data; and

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

48. The method as recited in claim 31, wherein at least one of the processing and the reprocessing comprises page boundary detection.

49. The method as recited in claim 48, wherein the page boundary detection comprises:

statistically analyzing portions of at least one of the received data and the processed data, the statistically analyzed portions corresponding to at least two image corner regions;

aggregating results of the statistically analyzed portions; and

defining one or more background properties based at least in part on the aggregated results.

50. The method as recited in claim 49, wherein the page boundary detection further comprises identifying one or more pixels characterized by at least one statistical property significantly different from at least one of the background properties.

51. A computer program product for virtual image reacquisition, the computer program product comprising a computer readable storage medium having computer readable program code embodied therewith, the computer readable program code comprising:

computer readable program code configured to receive data from a data capture device;

computer readable program code configured to analyze at least portions of the received data to determine whether the data is within a first set of parameters, and if not;

generate a first set of processor settings in response to determining the received data is not within the first set of parameters;

process the received data with the first set of processor settings; and

analyze at least portions of the processed data to determine whether the processed data is within a second set of parameters, and if not;

generate a second set of processor settings to reprocess the received data; and

reprocess the received data using the second set of processor settings; and

computer readable program code configured to output at least one of the received data, the processed data, and the reprocessed data for display on a mobile device;

wherein the second set of parameters is different than the first set of parameters,

wherein the second set of parameters comprises a predetermined metric, and

wherein at least one of the first set of processor settings and the second set of processor settings relate to one or more image characteristics selected from;

brightness, contrast, gamma, erosion, orientation, segmentation, saturation, color rendering, resolution, warp angle, skew angle, despeckling, dilation and sequence detection.

52. The computer program product as recited in claim 51, further comprising computer readable program code configured as a first analytic engine, the first analytic engine comprising computer readable program code configured to perform:

the analyzing the at least portions of the received data to determine whether the data is within the first set of parameters; and

the generating the first set of processor settings in response to determining the data is not within the first set of parameters.

53. The computer program product as recited in claim 52, wherein the first analytic engine is also configured to perform the reprocessing.

54. The computer program product as recited in claim 52, further comprising computer readable program code configured to send the second set of processor settings and metadata relating to the received data to the first analytic engine.

55. The computer program product as recited in claim 54, wherein the reprocessing is based at least in part on the metadata.

56. The computer program product as recited in claim 54, further comprising computer readable program code configured to display the metadata and at least some of the received data;

and

computer readable program code configured to receive user input relating to at least one of the displayed metadata and the displayed data.

57. The computer program product as recited in claim 54, wherein the metadata comprise one or more of:

a tag identifying a subsection of the data;

a tag identifying a storage location of the data;

a sequence number;

an indicator corresponding to a beginning of a data band;

an indicator corresponding to an end of the data band; and

a pointer corresponding to a second data band.

58. The computer program product as recited in claim 54, further comprising storing the metadata in a computer accessible storage medium, the metadata relating to one or more of the received data and the processed data.

59. The computer program product as recited in claim 51, further comprising computer readable program code configured as a second analytic engine, the second analytic engine comprising computer readable program code configured to perform:

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

the generating the second set of processor settings in response to determining the data is not within the second set of parameters.

60. The computer program product as recited in claim 51, further comprising computer readable program code configured as a first analytic engine, the first analytic engine comprising computer readable program code configured to perform:

the analyzing the at least portions of the received data to determine whether the data is within the first set of parameters;

the generating the first set of processor settings in response to determining the data is not within the first set of parameters; and

the reprocessing; and

wherein second analytic engine is used to perform;

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

the generating the second set of processor settings in response to determining the data is not within the second set of parameters.

61. The computer program product as recited in claim 51, wherein the computer readable program code configured to process the received data with the first set of processor settings comprises computer readable program code configured to:

apply one or more algorithms to the received data, the algorithm(s) being selected from;

a detection orientation algorithm, a detect bleed-through algorithm, a background smoothing algorithm, and a detection of page boundaries algorithm.