Systems and methods of processing scanned data

• US 8,823,991 B2
• Filed: 05/20/2013
• Issued: 09/02/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 03/24/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Kofax Incorporated
• Original Assignee: Kofax Incorporated
• Inventors: Borrey, Roland G., Schmidtler, Mauritius A. R., Taylor, Robert A., Fechter, Joel S., Asuri, Hari S.
• Primary Examiner(s): Baker, Charlotte M
• Application Number:
  US13/898,407
• Publication Number:
  US 20130251280A1
• Time in Patent Office: 470 Days
• Field of Search: 358/448, 358/443, 358/1.15, 358/518, 382/163, 382/274, 382/284, 382/224, 382/172, 382/177, 348/333.01, 348/333.03, 348/333.11, 348/333.12, 705/1
• US Class Current: 358/1.15
• CPC Class Codes: G06K 15/407 Managing marking material, e.g. checking available colours
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 5/00 Image enhancement or restoration
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 10/242 by image rotation, e.g. by 90 degrees
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 1/40 Picture signal circuits H04N1/387 takes precedence

Abstract

An efficient method and system to enhance digital acquisition devices for analog data is presented. The enhancements offered by the method and system are available to the user in local as well as in remote deployments yielding efficiency gains for a large variety of business processes. The quality enhancements of the acquired digital data are achieved efficiently by employing virtual reacquisition. The method of virtual reacquisition renders unnecessary the physical reacquisition of the analog data in case the digital data obtained by the acquisition device are of insufficient quality. The method and system allows multiple users to access the same acquisition device for analog data. In some embodiments, one or more users can virtually reacquire data provided by multiple analog or digital sources. The acquired raw data can be processed by each user according to his personal preferences and/or requirements. The preferred processing settings and attributes are determined interactively in real time as well as non real time, automatically and a combination thereof.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented data processing method comprising:

receiving image data from a remote data acquisition device via a wireless network, wherein the data acquisition device is a mobile phone;

analyzing at least portions of the image data with a first analytic engine to determine whether the image data is within a first set of parameters;

generating with the first analytic engine a first set of processor settings when the image data is not within the first set of parameters;

processing the image data with the first set of processor settings to generate processed data;

analyzing at least portions of the processed data with a second analytic engine to determine whether the processed data is within a second set of parameters and if not, generating with the second analytic engine a second set of processor settings to reprocess the raw or normalized data,

sending the second set of processor settings and metadata relating to the image data to the first analytic engine;

reprocessing the image data with the first analytic engine using the second set of processor settings to generate reprocessed data, and

outputting at least one of the processed data and the reprocessed data,

wherein the second set of parameters is different than the first set of parameters,

wherein the second set of parameters comprises a predetermined metric, and

wherein at least one of the first set of processor settings and the second set of processor settings relate to one or more image characteristics selected from;

brightness, contrast, gamma, erosion, orientation, segmentation, saturation, color rendering, resolution, warp angle, skew angle, despeckling, dilation and sequence detection.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising repeating the steps of:

analyzing at least portions of the processed data with the second analytic engine to determine whether the processed data is within the second set of parameters;

generating with the second analytic engine the second set of processor settings to reprocess the image data; and

reprocessing the image data with the second set of processor settings until the processed data is within the second set of parameters.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the processing includes applying at least one of a detect orientation algorithm, a detect bleed-through algorithm, a text extraction algorithm, a streak detection algorithm, a color conversion algorithm, and a background smoothing algorithm.

4. The method of claim 1 further comprising receiving processor settings from a user, and reprocessing the image data as received from the data acquisition device using the processor settings received from the user.

5. The method of claim 1 further comprising analyzing the image data, comparing the image data to a set of thresholds, and selectively alerting a user that the image data is potentially of low quality based on the comparing;

and receiving processor settings from a user, and reprocessing the image data using the processor settings received from the user.

6. The method of claim 1 further comprising triggering transmission of higher resolution image data from the data acquisition device.

7. A system, comprising:

hardware configured to execute logic, the logic including;

logic for receiving image data from a mobile phone via a wireless network;

logic for analyzing at least portions of the image data with a first analytic engine to determine whether the image data is within a first set of parameters;

logic for generating with the first analytic engine a first set of processor settings when the image data is not within the first set of parameters;

logic for processing, using a processor, the image data with the first set of processor settings to generate processed data; and

logic for analyzing at least portions of the processed data with a second analytic engine to determine whether the processed data is within a second set of parameters,

logic for generating with the second analytic engine a second set of processor settings to reprocess the raw or normalized data in response to determining the processed data is not within the second set of parameters,

logic for sending the second set of processor settings and metadata relating to the image data to the first analytic engine;

logic for reprocessing the image data with the first analytic engine using the second set of processor settings to generate reprocessed data, and

logic for outputting at least one of the processed data and the reprocessed data,

wherein the second set of parameters is different than the first set of parameters,

wherein the second set of parameters comprises a predetermined metric, and

wherein at least one of the first set of processor settings and the second set of processor settings relate to one or more image characteristics selected from;

brightness, contrast, gamma, erosion, orientation, segmentation, saturation, color rendering, resolution, warp angle, skew angle, despeckling, dilation and sequence detection.

8. The system of claim 7, further comprising:

logic configured to analyze at least portions of the processed data with a second analytic engine on the mobile phone;

logic configured to determine whether the processed ata is within a second set of parameters;

logic configured to generate with the second analytic engine a second set of processor settings; and

logic configured to reprocess the image data as it was prior to the processing in response to determining the processed data is not within the second set of parameters.

9. The system of claim 7 wherein the logic for processing includes:

logic for determining one or more boundaries of a page depicted in the image data;

logic for cropping the image data; and

logic for determining an orientation of the page depicted in the image data.

10. The system of claim 9, wherein the logic for processing further comprises logic for conducting at least one additional operation selected from:

detecting a barcode depicted in the image data;

despeckling the image data;

annotating the image data;

determining whether the page depicted in the image data is blank; and

determining whether the page depicted in the image data comprises color content.

11. The system of claim 10 further comprising:

logic for receiving input locally from a user of the mobile phone,

logic for generating processor settings based on the input received from the user, and

logic for reprocessing the image data using the processor settings.

12. The system of claim 7, wherein the logic for processing utilizes a neural network.

13. The system of claim 7 further comprising logic for triggering transmission of higher resolution image data from the mobile phone.

14. An image data processing method comprising:

capturing image data using a data acquisition device, wherein the data acquisition device is on at least one of a digital camera, a mobile phone, a video camera and a video recorder;

analyzing at least portions of the image data with a first analytic engine to determine whether the image data is within a first set of parameters;

generating with the first analytic engine a first set of processor settings when the image data is not within the first set of parameters; and

processing the image data with the first set of processor settings to generate processed data;

analyzing at least portions of the processed data with a second analytic engine to determine whether the processed data is within a second set of parameters;

generating with the second analytic engine a second set of processor settings to reprocess the image data in response to determining the processed data is not within the second set of parameters;

sending the second set of processor settings to the first analytic engine; and

reprocessing the image data with the first analytic engine using the second set of processor settings to generate reprocessed data.

15. The method of claim 14, further comprising repeating the steps of:

analyzing the at least portions of the processed data with the second analytic engine to determine whether the processed data is within the second set of parameters;

generating with the second analytic engine the second set of processor settings to reprocess the image data; and

reprocessing the image data with the second set of processor settings until the processed data is within the second set of parameters.

16. A program product, comprising:

a non-transitory computer readable medium storing executable code thereon, the executable code including;

code for capturing image data on a data acquisition device, wherein the data acquisition device is on at least one of a digital camera, a mobile phone, a video camera and a video recorder;

code for analyzing on the data acquisition device at least portions of the image data with a first analytic engine to determine whether the image data is within a first set of parameters;

code for generating on the data acquisition device with the first analytic engine a first set of processor settings when the image data is not within the first set of parameters; and

code for processing on the data acquisition device the image data with the first set of processor settings to generate processed data;

code for analyzing at least portions of the processed data with a second analytic engine to determine whether the processed data is within a second set of parameters;

code for generating with the second analytic engine a second set of processor settings to reprocess the image data in response to determining the processed data is not within the second set of parameters;

code for sending the second set of processor settings to the first analytic engine; and

code for reprocessing the image data with the first analytic engine using the second set of processor settings to generate reprocessed data.

17. A system, comprising:

hardware configured to execute logic, the logic including;

logic configured for capturing image data using a capture device of a mobile phone;

logic configured for analyzing, with a first analytic engine on the mobile phone at least portions of the image data to determine whether the image data is within a first set of parameters;

logic configured for generating with the first analytic engine a first set of processor settings when the image data is not within the first set of parameters;

logic configured for processing the image data with the first set of processor settings to generate processed data; and

logic for analyzing at least portions of the processed data with a second analytic engine to determine whether the processed data is within a second set of parameters;

logic for generating with the second analytic engine a second set of processor settings to reprocess the image data in response to determining the processed data is not within the second set of parameters;

logic for sending the second set of processor settings to the first analytic engine; and

logic for reprocessing the image data with the first analytic engine using the second set of processor settings to generate reprocessed data.

18. A computer program product, comprising:

a non-transitory computer readable medium storing computer code thereon, the computer code including;

computer code for capturing image data using a capture device of a mobile phone;

computer code for analyzing at least portions of the image data with a first analytic engine to determine whether the image data is within a first set of parameters;

computer code for generating with the first analytic engine a first set of processor settings when the image data is not within the first set of parameters;

computer code for processing, using a processor of the mobile phone, the image data with the first set of processor settings to generate processed data;

computer code for analyzing at least portions of the processed data with a second analytic engine to determine whether the processed data is within a second set of parameters;

computer code for generating with the second analytic engine a second set of processor settings to reprocess the image data in response to determining the processed data is not within the second set of parameters;

computer code for sending the second set of processor settings to the first analytic engine; and

computer code for reprocessing the image data with the first analytic engine using the second set of processor settings to generate reprocessed data; and

computer code for outputting at least one of the processed data and the reprocessed data.