Information input device

• US 6,917,438 B1
• Filed: 09/18/2000
• Issued: 07/12/2005
• Est. Priority Date: 10/22/1999
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Kabushiki Kaisha Toshiba (Toshiba Corporation), Toshiba Tec Corporation (Toshiba Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Kabushiki Kaisha Toshiba (Toshiba Corporation), Toshiba Tec Corporation (Toshiba Corporation)
• Inventors: Yoda, Nobuhisa, Haraguchi, Tatsuya
• Primary Examiner(s): Grant II, Jerome
• Application Number:
  US09/664,071
• Time in Patent Office: 1,758 Days
• Field of Search: 358/400, 358/401, 358/474, 358/493, 358/494, 358/496, 358/497, 358/448, 358/450, 358/500, 358/501, 358/505, 358/471, 382/312, 382/313, 382/315, 382/317, 382/321
• US Class Current: 358/1.15
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/93 Document management systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 10/10 Image acquisition document image scanning and transmission H04N1/00; control of digital cameras H04N23/60
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 10/96 Management of image or video recognition tasks
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 30/10 Character recognition

Abstract

The present invention employs an instruction button for inputting an instruction to simultaneously executing registration, in a full-text-search database, of a document scanned by one scanning operation and subjected to OCR processing, and registration of the document in a designated folder contained in a database of a folder tree structure. This single instruction button enables the user to simultaneously register read images in a folder, and text data resulting from OCR processing executed on the read images.

Claims

1. An information input device comprising:

an image reading section for reading images on each of documents;

a character recognition section for subjecting, to character recognition processing, the images read by the image reading section;

a display section for displaying various types of instruction buttons;

a management section for managing set contents corresponding to each of the instruction buttons displayed on the display section, the set contents including a destination of registration of the images read by the image reading section, and contents of processing executed on the images by the character recognition section; and

a control section for executing control, when one of the instruction buttons has been designated, on the basis of the set contents corresponding to said one of the instruction buttons and managed by the management section, the control section controlling the image reading section so as to read the images, controlling the character recognition section so as to execute character recognition processing on the read images, and simultaneously registering the read images and a result of character recognition processing executed on the read images,

wherein;

the management section manages the set contents corresponding to said one of the instruction buttons, the set contents including the destination of registration of the images read by the image reading section, the contents of processing executed on the images by the character recognition section, and a range of processing executed by the character recognition section; and

the control section executes control, when one of the instruction buttons has been designated, on the basis of the set contents corresponding to said one of the instruction buttons and managed by the management section, the control section controlling the image reading section so as to read the images, controlling the character recognition section so as to execute character recognition processing on those of the read images which are contained within the range of processing, and simultaneously registering the read images and a result of character recognition processing executed on the read images contained within the range of processing.

2. An information input device comprising:

an image reading section for reading images on each of documents;

a character recognition section for subjecting, to character recognition processing, the images read by the image reading section;

a display section for displaying various types of instruction buttons;

a management section for managing set contents corresponding to each of the instruction buttons displayed on the display section, the set contents including a destination of registration of the images read by the image reading section, and contents of processing executed on the images by the character recognition section; and

a control section for executing control, when one of the instruction buttons has been designated, on the basis of the set contents corresponding to said one of the instruction buttons and managed by the management section, the control section controlling the image reading section so as to read the images, controlling the character recognition section so as to execute character recognition processing on the read images, and simultaneously registering the read images and a result of character recognition processing executed on the read images,

wherein;

the management section manages the set contents corresponding to said one of the instruction buttons, the set contents including the destination of registration of the images read by the image reading section, the contents of processing executed on the read images by the character recognition section, and processing conditions corresponding to types of the documents; and

the control section executes control, when one of the instruction buttons has been designated, on the basis of the set contents corresponding to said one of the instruction buttons and managed by the management section, the control section controlling the image reading section so as to read the images, controlling the character recognition section so as to execute character recognition processing on the read images under the processing conditions, and simultaneously registering the read images and a result of character recognition processing executed on the read images.

3. The information input device according to claim 2, wherein the processing conditions corresponding to types of the documents include designation of a dictionary to be used for character recognition processing.

4. An information input device further comprising:

an image reading section for reading images on each of documents;

a character recognition section for subjecting, to character recognition processing, the images read by the image reading section;

a display section for displaying various types of instruction buttons;

a management section for managing set contents corresponding to each of the instruction buttons displayed on the display section, the set contents including a destination of registration of the images read by the image reading section, and contents of processing executed on the images by the character recognition section;

a control section for executing control, when one of the instruction buttons has been designated, on the basis of the set contents corresponding to said one of the instruction buttons and managed by the management section, the control section controlling the image reading section so as to read the images, controlling the character recognition section so as to execute character recognition processing on the read images, and simultaneously registering the read images and a result of character recognition processing executed on the read images; and

a memory for accumulating an image transmitted from an external device,

and wherein;

the character recognition section subjects, to character recognition processing, the images read by the image reading section or the image accumulated in the memory; and

the control section executes control, when one of the instruction buttons has been designated, on the basis of the set contents corresponding to said one of the instruction buttons and managed by the management section, the control section controlling the image reading section so as to read the images, controlling the character recognition section so as to execute character recognition processing on images obtained by attaching the image accumulated in the memory to the read images, and simultaneously registering the images obtained by attaching the image accumulated in the memory to the read images, and a result of character recognition processing.

5. An information input device comprising:

an image reading section for reading images on each of documents;

a character recognition section for subjecting, to character recognition processing, the images read by the image reading section;

a display section for displaying various types of instruction buttons;

a management section for managing set contents corresponding to each of the instruction buttons displayed on the display section, the set contents including a destination of registration of the images read by the image reading section, and contents of processing executed on the images by the character recognition section; and

a control section for executing control, when one of the instruction buttons has been designated, on the basis of the set contents corresponding to said one of the instruction buttons and managed by the management section, the control section controlling the image reading section so as to read the images, controlling the character recognition section so as to execute character recognition processing on the read images, and simultaneously registering the read images and a result of character recognition processing executed on the read images,

wherein the control section executes control, when one of the instruction buttons has been designated, on the basis of the set contents corresponding to said one of the instruction buttons and managed by the management section, the control section controlling the image reading section so as to read the images, controlling the character recognition section so as to execute character recognition processing on the read images, registering the read images, and simultaneously registering a result of character recognition processing executed on the read images, together with the set contents corresponding to said one of the instruction buttons.

6. An information input device comprising:

an image reading section for reading images on each of documents;

a character recognition section for subjecting, to character recognition processing, the images read by the image reading section;

a display section for displaying various types of instruction buttons;

a management section for managing set contents corresponding to each of the instruction buttons displayed on the display section, the set contents including a destination of registration of the images read by the image reading section, and contents of processing executed on the images by the character recognition section; and

a control section for executing control, when one of the instruction buttons has been designated, on the basis of the set contents corresponding to said one of the instruction buttons and managed by the management section, the control section controlling the image reading section so as to read the images, controlling the character recognition section so as to execute character recognition processing on the read images, and simultaneously registering the read images and a result of character recognition processing executed on the read images,

wherein;

the character recognition section subjects, to character recognition processing, the images read by the image reading section, and also subjects a result of character recognition processing to sentence analysis processing for determining other recognition candidates; and

the control section executes control, when one of the instruction buttons has been designated, on the basis of the set contents corresponding to said one of the instruction buttons and managed by the management section, the control section controlling the image reading section so as to read the images, controlling the character recognition section so as to execute character recognition processing on the read images, subjecting a result of character recognition processing to sentence analysis processing, registering the read images, and simultaneously registering the result of character recognition processing together with recognition candidates obtained by the sentence analysis processing.

7. An information input device comprising:

an image reading section for reading images on each of documents;

a character recognition section for subjecting, to character recognition processing, the images read by the image reading section;

a display section for displaying various types of instruction buttons;

a management section for managing set contents corresponding to each of the instruction buttons displayed on the display section, the set contents including a destination of registration of the images read by the image reading section, and contents of processing executed on the images by the character recognition section; and

a control section for executing control, when one of the instruction buttons has been designated, on the basis of the set contents corresponding to said one of the instruction buttons and managed by the management section, the control section controlling the image reading section so as to read the images, controlling the character recognition section so as to execute character recognition processing on the read images, and simultaneously registering the read images and a result of character recognition processing executed on the read images,

wherein;

the character recognition section has a function of subjecting, to character recognition processing, the images read by the image reading section, and a function of detecting, from the images read by the image reading section, separator information indicating an end of said each of the documents; and

the control section executes control, when one of the instruction buttons has been designated, on the basis of the set contents corresponding to said one of the instruction buttons and managed by the management section, the control section controlling the image reading section so as to read the images, controlling the character recognition section so as to execute character recognition processing on images on each document having an end thereof detected when the separator information is detected, registering the images on said each document after erasing the separator information from the images read by the image reading section, and simultaneously registering a result of character recognition processing executed on the read images on said each document.

8. An information input device comprising:

an image reading section for reading images on each of documents;

a character recognition section for subjecting, to character recognition processing, the images read by the image reading section;

a display section for displaying various types of instruction buttons;

a management section for managing set contents corresponding to each of the instruction buttons displayed on the display section, the set contents including a destination of registration of the images read by the image reading section, and contents of processing executed on the images by the character recognition section; and

a control section for executing control, when one of the instruction buttons has been designated, on the basis of the set contents corresponding to said one of the instruction buttons and managed by the management section, the control section controlling the image reading section so as to read the images, controlling the character recognition section so as to execute character recognition processing on the read images, and simultaneously registering the read images and a result of character recognition processing executed on the read images,

wherein the control section executes control, when one of the instruction buttons has been designated, on the basis of the set contents corresponding to said one of the instruction buttons and managed by the management section, the control section controlling the image reading section so as to read the images and determine whether or not the read images have a data size greater than an allowable limit value, controlling the character recognition section so as to execute character recognition processing on the read images, registering only a result of character recognition processing executed on the read images, without registering the read images in a destination of registration corresponding to said one of the instruction buttons if the read images have a data size greater than the allowable limit value, the control section registering the result of character recognition processing executed on the read images, and simultaneously registering the read images in the destination of registration corresponding to said one of the instruction buttons if the read images does not have a data size greater than the allowable limit value.