Apparatus for recognizing input character strings by inference

• US 6,751,605 B2
• Filed: 02/22/2001
• Issued: 06/15/2004
• Est. Priority Date: 05/21/1996
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: Hitachi, Ltd.
• Original Assignee: Hitachi, Ltd.
• Inventors: Gunji, Keiko, Miura, Masaki, Yokota, Toshimi, Katsura, Koyo, Kuzunuki, Soshiro
• Primary Examiner(s): Shah, Sanjiv
• Application Number:
  US09/789,820
• Publication Number:
  US 20010028742A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,209 Days
• Field of Search: 707/1, 707/2, 707/3, 707/4, 707/5, 707/6, 707/10, 707/102, 707/103, 706/52
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 30/10 Character recognition
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 30/262 using context analysis, e.g. lexical, syntactic or semantic context
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99931 Database or file accessing
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99933 Query processing, i.e. searching

Abstract

A character recognition apparatus for inferring the entire character string solely from a user-input handwritten keyword and displaying the inferred result as a candidate character string.

The apparatus of the invention comprises: a word string includes a word hierarchy and for recognizing each of the words within the hierarchy; a character transition probability table a4 storing probabilities of transitions from any one character to another, and those pieces of the word identification information which correspond to combinations of characters resulting from the transitions; and an optimization unit for using the character transition probability table in optimizing candidate character strings obtained by a recognition unit. The word dictionary is searched for a word defined by the word identification information which corresponds to the optimized candidate character string, whereby the searched word is retrieved which applies to the hierarchy information and which has yet to be input.

Claims

1. A search system for searching a multi-item data base, said system comprising:

said multi-item data base;

a search-object specification table for specifying items as search objects;

an attribute definition table for specifying a pointer to attributes of data of each of said items specified as a search object;

an analogy table for cataloging analogy relations among said data based on said attributes;

a search index table for referencing data of a search object;

a priority-order definition table for defining a priority order of search items; and

a search-result display range definition table with each entry thereof used for recording a number of a display step of a search result and an indicator indicating how much said search result must match a keyword or a minimum number of matching searched items in said search result before said search result can be displayed,

wherein pieces of data analogous to an input keyword or pieces of data with a meaning close to said input keyword are displayed as search results step by step, even if said data does not perfectly match said input keyword, in a priority order desired by the user starting with a piece of data closest to said input keyword.

2. A search system for searching a multi-item data base according to claim 1 wherein said analogy table is used for storing analogy relations among data such as colors, goods/things and degrees of brightness/darkness.

3. A search system for searching a multi-item data base according to claim 1 wherein said analogy table is implemented by a thesaurus.

4. A search system for searching a multi-item data base wherein a search index table is automatically created and data close to an input keyword is displayed when the user specifies only:

said multi-item data base;

a search-object specification table for specifying items as search objects;

an attribute definition table for specifying a pointer to attributes of data of each of said items specified as a search object; and

a priority-order definition table for defining a priority order of search items, and a search-result display range definition table with each entry thereof used for recording a number of a display step of a search result and an indicator indicating how much said search result must match a keyword or a minimum number of matching searched items in said search result before said search result can be displayed.

5. A search system for searching a database for multi-item data indicated by a character string, said search system comprising:

search means for searching for data in the database corresponding to said character string using an index which links a character-to-character transition of said character string to multi-item data,

wherein each character of said character string serves as a key,

evaluation means for evaluating an analogy between said character string and said data corresponding to said character string; and

output means for outputting an evaluation result of the evaluation performed by said evaluation means.

6. A search system according to claim 5, wherein said evaluation means uses at least one out of a number of hit items, a priority between items, a number of hit characters, a hit character position, a hit character order, and a character-to-character transition to said character string.

7. A search system according to claim 6, wherein said output means outputs multi-item data that is a close analogy of said character string.

8. A search system for searching a database for multi-item data indicated by a character string, said search system comprising:

search means for searching data in the data base corresponding to said character string using an index which links a character-to-character transition of said character string to multi-item data,

wherein each character of said character string serves as a key,

evaluation means for evaluating an analogy between said character string and said data corresponding to said character string based on priority of said multi-item data; and

output means for outputting an evaluation result of the evaluation performed by said evaluation means.

9. A search system according to claim 8, wherein said evaluation means uses at least one out of a number of hit items, a priority between items, a number of hit characters, a hit character position, a hit character order, and a character-to-character transition to said character string.

10. A search system according to claim 9, wherein said output means outputs multi-item data that is a close analogy of said character string.