Method for locating the position and orientation of a fiduciary mark
First Claim
1. A method of analyzing indicia including a first component having a first optical signature and a second component having a second optical signature, comprising the steps of:
- (a) reading said indicia;
(b) storing an image of pixel values corresponding to said indicia in a matrix defining a set of coordinate axes;
(c) a first cropping step wherein said image is reduced to a first area, and then within said first area;
(i) conducting a first series of detection attempts of increasing computational complexity until said first component is successfully detected;
(ii) defining a first point associated with said first component;
(iii) setting to zero the pixel values associated with said first component;
(iv) conducting a second series of detection attempts of increasing computational complexity until said second component is successfully detected;
(v) defining a second point associated with said second component; and
(vi) determining the orientation of a vector from said first point to said second point with respect to said first set of coordinate axes.
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Accused Products
Abstract
Fiduciary mark detection system usable with an over-the-belt optical character recognition (OCR) reader for ascertaining the position and orientation of text within the destination address on parcels moving along a conveyor, comprising charged coupled device (CCD) array, analog-to-digital (A/D) converter, general purpose computer, and software program. Image processing software program comprising projection histograms, convolution filtering, correlation, radial variance, first moments of inertia, edge image analysis, Hough method, detection confidence testing. Orientation defining mark comprising fluorescent ink placed approximately in the center of the destination address block on a parcel is non obstructive of the underlying text and may be affixed to parcel any time prior to scanning. Fiduciary mark comprising two circles of different diameter oriented such that a vector from the center of large circle to center of small circle is oriented in the same direction as underlying text.
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Citations
32 Claims
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1. A method of analyzing indicia including a first component having a first optical signature and a second component having a second optical signature, comprising the steps of:
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(a) reading said indicia; (b) storing an image of pixel values corresponding to said indicia in a matrix defining a set of coordinate axes; (c) a first cropping step wherein said image is reduced to a first area, and then within said first area; (i) conducting a first series of detection attempts of increasing computational complexity until said first component is successfully detected; (ii) defining a first point associated with said first component; (iii) setting to zero the pixel values associated with said first component; (iv) conducting a second series of detection attempts of increasing computational complexity until said second component is successfully detected; (v) defining a second point associated with said second component; and (vi) determining the orientation of a vector from said first point to said second point with respect to said first set of coordinate axes. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32)
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Specification