Detection of highlighted regions
First Claim
1. A method for processing a first image in a digital computer to identify a location of highlight regions in said first image, said first image comprising mark regions having a first grayscale, a highlighted portion of said marks at least partially surrounded by said highlight regions, said highlight regions having a second grayscale, comprising the steps of:
- a) inputting a grayscale image of said first image;
b) identifying a location of said portion of said marks in said first image using said grayscale image, said step of identifying a location further comprising the step of converting said highlight regions to substantially solid regions, said substantially solid regions corresponding to said highlight regions; and
c) using said substantially solid regions in combination with an image comprising at least marks of said first image to extract a second image, said second image comprising said highlighted portion of said marks.
3 Assignments
0 Petitions
Accused Products
Abstract
A method and apparatus for detection of highlighted regions of a document. A document containing highlighted regions is scanned using a gray scale scanner. Morphology and threshold reduction techniques are used to separate highlighted and non-highlighted portions of the docment. Having separated the highlighted and non-highlighted portions, optical character recognition (OCR) techniques can then be used to extract text from the highlighted regions.
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Citations
68 Claims
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1. A method for processing a first image in a digital computer to identify a location of highlight regions in said first image, said first image comprising mark regions having a first grayscale, a highlighted portion of said marks at least partially surrounded by said highlight regions, said highlight regions having a second grayscale, comprising the steps of:
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a) inputting a grayscale image of said first image; b) identifying a location of said portion of said marks in said first image using said grayscale image, said step of identifying a location further comprising the step of converting said highlight regions to substantially solid regions, said substantially solid regions corresponding to said highlight regions; and c) using said substantially solid regions in combination with an image comprising at least marks of said first image to extract a second image, said second image comprising said highlighted portion of said marks. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 31, 32)
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9. A method for processing a first image in a digital computer to identify a location of highlight regions in said first image, said first image comprising mark regions having a first grayscale, a highlighted portion of said marks at least partially surrounded by said highlight regions, said highlight regions having a second grayscale, comprising the steps of:
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a) inputting a grayscale image of said first image; b) identifying a location of said portion of said marks in said first image using said grayscale image, said step of identifying a location further comprising the step of converting said highlight regions to substantially solid regions, said substantially solid regions corresponding to said location of said portions of said marks; c) producing a highlight image; d) band-pass filtering said grayscale image to produce a highlight image, said highlight image filled to produce said substantially solid regions; and e) producing a highlight region mask from said highlight image further comprising the steps of; i) opening said highlight image with a structuring element of substantially solid ON entries to produce a first intermediate image; and ii) closing said first intermediate image to substantially fill mark regions and produce said highlight region mask. - View Dependent Claims (10, 11, 12, 19)
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13. A method for processing a first image in a digital computer to identify a location of highlight regions in said first image, said first image comprising mark regions having a first grayscale, a highlighted portion of said marks at least partially surrounded by said highlight regions, said highlight regions having a second grayscale, comprising the steps of:
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a) inputting a grayscale image of said first image; b) identifying a location of said portion of said marks in said first image using said grayscale image, said step of identifying a location further comprising the step of converting said highlight regions to substantially solid regions, said substantially solid regions corresponding to said location of said portions of said marks; c) producing a highlight image; d) band-pass filtering said grayscale image to produce a highlight image, said highlight image filled to produce said substantially solid regions; and e) producing a highlight region mask from said highlight image further comprising the step of reducing said highlight image at least once to produce said mask. - View Dependent Claims (14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24)
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25. A method for processing a first image in a digital computer to identify a location of highlight regions in said first image, said first image comprising mark regions having a first grayscale, a highlighted portion of said marks at least partially surrounded by said highlight regions, said highlight having a second grayscale, comprising the steps of:
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a) inputting a grayscale image of said first image; b) identifying a location of said portion of said marks in said first image using said grayscale image, said step of identifying a location further comprising the step of converting said highlight regions to substantially solid regions, said substantially solid regions corresponding to said location of said portions of said marks; c) producing a highlight image; d) band-pass filtering said grayscale image to produce a highlight image, said highlight image filled to produce said substantially solid regions; and e) forming a second highlight mark image by the steps of; i) inverting said highlight image to produce an inverted highlighted image; and ii) ANDing said inverted highlighted image with said substantially solid regions to produce said highlight mark image. - View Dependent Claims (26, 27, 28, 29, 30)
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33. A method for processing a first image in a digital computer to identify a location of highlight regions in said first image, said first image comprising mark regions having a first grayscale, a highlighted portion of said marks at least partially surrounded by said highlight regions, said highlight regions having a second grayscale, comprising the steps of:
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a) inputting a grayscale image of said first image; b) identifying a location of said portion of said marks in said first image using said grayscale image, said step of identifying a location further comprising the step of converting said highlight regions to substantially solid regions, said substantially solid regions corresponding to said location of said portions of said marks; c) producing a highlight image; d) band-pass filtering said grayscale image to produce a highlight image, said highlight image filled to produce said substantially solid regions; and e) filling said highlight image to produce substantially solid regions, wherein said highlight regions comprise loops and wherein said step of converting to substantially solid regions further comprises the step of closing said highlight image with a plurality of structuring elements, said plurality of structuring elements comprising lines of ON pixels oriented in at least two directions to produce said substantially solid regions. - View Dependent Claims (34)
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35. A digital computer programmed to process a first image to identify a location of highlight regions in said first image, said first image comprising mark regions having a first grayscale, a highlighted portion of said marks at least partially surrounded by said highlight regions, said highlight regions having a second grayscale, comprising:
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a) means to input a grayscale image of said first image; b) means programmed to identify a location of said portion of said marks in said first image using said grayscale image, said means for identifying a location programmed to convert said highlight regions to substantially solid regions, said substantially solid regions corresponding to said highlight regions; and c) means to use said substantially solid regions in combination with an image comprising marks of said first image to extract a second image, said second image comprising said highlighted portion of said marks. - View Dependent Claims (36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 65, 66)
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43. A digital computer programmed to process a first image to identify a location of highlight regions in said first image, said first image comprising mark regions having a first grayscale, a highlighted portion of said marks at least partially surrounded by said highlight regions, said highlight regions having a second grayscale, comprising:
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a) means to input a grayscale image of said first image; b) means programmed to identify a location of said portion of said marks in said first image using said grayscale image, said means for identifying a location programmed to convert said highlight regions to substantially solid regions, said substantially solid regions corresponding to said location of said portions of said marks; c) means programmed to band-pass filter said grayscale image to produce a highlight image, said highlight image filled to produce said substantially solid regions; d) means programmed to produce a highlight region mask from said highlight image, said mask comprising substantially solid ON pixels in said highlight regions; and e) means programmed to produce said highlight region mask from said highlight image by the steps of; i) opening said highlight image with a structuring element of substantially solid ON entries to produce a first intermediate image; and ii) closing said first intermediate image to substantially fill mark regions and produce said highlight region mask. - View Dependent Claims (44, 45, 46, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 60, 61, 62, 63, 64)
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47. A digital computer programmed to process a first image to identify a location of highlight regions in said first image, said first image comprising mark regions having a first grayscale, a highlighted portion of said marks at least partially surrounded by said highlight regions, said highlight regions having a second grayscale, comprising:
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a) means to input a grayscale image of said first image; b) means programmed to identify a location of said portion of said marks in said first image using said grayscale image, said means for identifying a location programmed to convert said highlight regions to substantially solid regions, said substantially solid regions corresponding to said location of said portions of said marks; c) means programmed to band-pass filter said grayscale image to produce a highlight image, said highlight image filled to produce said substantially solid regions; d) means programmed to produce a highlight region mask from said highlight image, said mask comprising substantially solid ON pixels in said highlight regions; and e) means programmed to produce said highlight region mask from said highlight image by the step of reducing said highlight image at least once to produce said mask. - View Dependent Claims (48, 49, 50, 51, 52)
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59. A digital computer programmed to process a first image to identify a location of highlight regions in said first image, said first image comprising mark regions having a first grayscale, a highlighted portion of said marks at least partially surrounded by said highlight regions, said highlight regions having a second grayscale, comprising:
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a) means to input a grayscale image of said first image; b) means programmed to identify a location of said portion of said marks in said first image using said grayscale image, said means for identifying a location programmed to convert said highlight regions to substantially solid regions, said substantially solid regions corresponding to said location of said portions of said marks; c) means programmed to band-pass filter said grayscale image to produce a highlight image, said highlight image filled to produce said substantially solid regions; d) means programmed to produce a highlight region mask from said highlight image, said mask comprising substantially solid ON pixels in said highlight regions; and e) means programmed to form a second image by the steps of; i) inverting said highlight image to produce an inverted highlighted image; and ii) ANDing said inverted highlighted image with said highlight region mask to produce a highlight mark image.
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67. A digital computer programmed to process a first image to identify a location of highlight regions in said first image, said first image comprising mark regions having a first grayscale, a highlighted portion of said marks at least partially surrounded by said highlight regions, said highlight regions having a second grayscale, comprising:
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a) means to input a grayscale image of said first image; b) means programmed to identify a location of said portion of said marks in said first image using said grayscale image, said means for identifying a location programmed to convert said highlight regions to substantially solid regions, said substantially solid regions corresponding to said location of said portions of said marks; and c) means programmed to band-pass filter said grayscale image to produce a highlight image, said highlight image filled to produce said substantially solid regions, wherein said highlight regions comprise broken loops and wherein said step of converting to substantially solid regions further comprises the step of closing said highlight image sequentially with a plurality of structuring elements, said plurality of structuring elements comprising lines of ON pixels oriented in at least two directions to produce said substantially solid regions. - View Dependent Claims (68)
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Specification