Method and apparatus for recognizing characters on a document
First Claim
1. A method for recognizing characters on a document comprising steps of:
- storing an image of said document in an image storage means;
detecting position of rectangles in XY coordinates of said image storage means, which contact outer boundaries of character images, respectively in plural character rows stored in said image storage means, to generate position data representing said positions of said rectangles;
forming a list in which said position data of the rectangles are arranged in the order from one end to the other end along the direction of X axis of said XY coordinates;
detecting a range in Y axis for one character row based upon Y axis information of said position data of said rectangles in said list; and
fetching said character images stored in said image storage means by using said position data of said rectangles which fall into said range, to recognize said fetched character images.
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Abstract
A method and apparatus for recognizing characters on a document, even if the document is skewed or not aligned with the axis of a typical segmentation apparatus such as a scanner. A plurality of rectangles are formed surrounding respective character images, with position data for each rectangle stored in a first table in which plural position data of the rectangles are arranged in order from the left-most rectangle to the right-most rectangle in the X direction of the XY coordinates of the image buffer. By determining the rectangles belonging to one character row in the first list and calculating the positions of the bottom left corners of the rectangles, skew of the document is calculated. Vertical positions of the rectangles compensated by the skew in the Y direction are calculated to transfer the position data of the rectangles belonging to the first character row to a second table. The image data surrounded by the rectangles specified by the position data in the second list are sequentially supplied to a character recognition unit.
65 Citations
12 Claims
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1. A method for recognizing characters on a document comprising steps of:
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storing an image of said document in an image storage means; detecting position of rectangles in XY coordinates of said image storage means, which contact outer boundaries of character images, respectively in plural character rows stored in said image storage means, to generate position data representing said positions of said rectangles; forming a list in which said position data of the rectangles are arranged in the order from one end to the other end along the direction of X axis of said XY coordinates; detecting a range in Y axis for one character row based upon Y axis information of said position data of said rectangles in said list; and fetching said character images stored in said image storage means by using said position data of said rectangles which fall into said range, to recognize said fetched character images.
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2. A method for recognizing characters on a document comprising steps of:
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storing image data representing image of said document in image storage means; detecting positions of rectangles in the XY coordinates of said image storage means, which contact outer boundaries of each character image in plural character rows stored in said image storage means to generate position data representing said positions of said rectangles; storing said position data of said rectangles to form a first list in which plural position data of said rectangles are arranged in the order from one end to the other end in a direction of X axis of said XY coordinates; determining the position data of a predetermined number of rectangles belonging to one character row to detect a skew of said document in said XY coordinates; generating a virtual position of each rectangle by correcting the position in Y axis of said XY coordinates of each rectangle in said first list by said skew to transfer said position data of said rectangles belonging to the first character row from said first list to a second list; and supplying from said image storage means to a character recognition means said image data surrounded by said rectangles specified by said position data in said second list. - View Dependent Claims (3, 4, 5, 6)
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7. A character recognition apparatus includes:
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image storage means for storing image of a document; means for detecting positions of rectangles each of which contacts outer boundaries of each of plural character images stored in said image storage means to generate position data representing said position; means for arranging said rectangles in the order from one end to the other end in a direction of X axis based upon X axis information of said position data; means for selecting rectangles belonging to a character row based upon Y axis information of said ordered rectangles; and means for fetching character images from said image storage means by using said position data of said rectangles to recognize said character images. - View Dependent Claims (8, 9, 10, 11, 12)
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Specification