Automated method of decomposing scanned documents

• US 8,913,285 B1
• Filed: 06/07/2009
• Issued: 12/16/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 06/07/2009
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Apple Inc.
• Original Assignee: Apple Inc.
• Inventors: Neubrand, Hans-Werner
• Primary Examiner(s): Tieu, Benny Q
• Assistant Examiner(s): Sabah, Haris
• Application Number:
  US12/479,851
• Time in Patent Office: 2,018 Days
• Field of Search: None
• US Class Current: 358/1.9
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 1/3873 defined only by a limited number of coordinate points or parameters, e.g. corners, centre; for trimming

Abstract

Some embodiments produce an image capture application that implements a novel auto scan feature. The auto scan feature directs a scanner to perform an initial scan and then decomposes the scanned document into component regions. Some embodiments then identify a set of attributes of each region from the initial scan, select a set of optimal scanning parameters for each region based on the identified set of attributes, and then direct the scanner to perform a detailed secondary scan of each region with the identified set of scanning parameters. Following the secondary scan, some embodiments perform post-scan operations on the image of the scanned region.

Claims

1. A non-transitory machine readable medium storing an image capture application for execution on a device, the image capture application comprising sets of instructions for:

receiving a scanned electronic document based on a first scan; and

automatically and without user input;

identifying a plurality of component regions within the scanned electronic document that contain content, wherein a first component region is identified as containing content of a first type and a second component region is identified as containing content of a second type that is different from the first type of content based on attributes for a corresponding component region,

identifying a set of scan parameters for the first and second component regions based on the attributes for the corresponding component region, and

obtaining a second scan of the first and second component regions based on the set of scan parameters identified for the corresponding component region.

2. The non-transitory machine readable medium of claim 1, wherein the set of instructions for obtaining the second scan of each region comprises a set of instructions for performing a plurality of different individual secondary scan operations, wherein each different secondary scan operation is performed for a different region automatically and without user intervention.

3. The non-transitory machine readable medium of claim 1, wherein the set of instructions for identifying a component region comprises a set of instructions for determining boundaries of the component region by analyzing the scanned electronic document.

4. The non-transitory machine readable medium of claim 1, wherein the set of instructions for identifying the set of scan parameters for the first and second component regions comprises a set of instructions for determining the content types for the first and second component regions using the attributes for the corresponding component region, and generating the set of scan parameters for the corresponding component region based on the attributes for the corresponding component region.

5. The non-transitory machine readable medium of claim 1, wherein the set of scan parameters comprises color depth.

6. The non-transitory machine readable medium of claim 1, wherein the set of instructions for obtaining the second scan of a region on the set of scan parameters for that component region comprises a set of instructions for commanding a scanner to perform a scan of the component region according to a first subset of the scan parameters.

7. The non-transitory machine readable medium of claim 6, wherein the set of instructions for obtaining the second scan of the component region on the set of scan parameters for that component region comprises a set of instructions for processing an image garnered from the scan according to a second subset of the scan parameters relate to post-scan processing of the image.

8. The non-transitory machine readable medium of claim 1, wherein the image capture application further comprises sets of instructions for:

receiving an input to forego an attempt to decompose the scanned electronic document into a plurality of component regions; and

foregoing said identifying the component region, identifying the scan parameters for each component region, and obtaining a second scan of each component region, when the input to forego the attempt to decompose is received.

9. The non-transitory machine readable medium of claim 1, wherein the set of instructions for obtaining the second scan of each component region comprises sets of instructions for:

identifying a set of pre-defined scanner settings from attributes identified for the component region; and

based on the identified set of scanner settings, directing a scanner to perform the second scan of the component region.

10. The non-transitory machine readable medium of claim 9, wherein the pre-defined scanner settings are defined by an author of the image capture application.

11. The non-transitory machine readable medium of claim 9, wherein the pre-defined scanner settings are defined by a user of the image capture application before the scanned electronic document is generated by the first scan.

12. The non-transitory machine readable medium of claim 1, wherein the sets of instructions for identifying the component regions, identifying the scan parameters and obtaining the second scan for each region comprises sets of instructions for generating application program interface (API) calls to a set of image capture engines to identify the component regions, identify the scan parameters, and obtain the second scan for each region.

13. A non-transitory machine readable medium for storing an image capture application for execution on a device, the image capture application comprising sets of instructions for:

receiving a scanned electronic document that was produced by a first scan; and

automatically and without user input;

identifying a plurality of component regions within the scanned electronic document that contain content, wherein a first component region is identified as containing content of a first type and a second component region is identified as containing content of a second type that is different from the first type of content based on attributes for a corresponding component region;

rotating at least one of the first and second component regions with respect to the scanned electronic document based on the attributes for the at least one of the first and second component regions; and

extracting and storing each component region separately.

14. The non-transitory machine readable medium of claim 13, wherein the set of instructions for extracting a component region comprises a set of instructions for performing a second scan of an area that includes that component region.

15. The non-transitory machine readable medium of claim 14, wherein said area excludes other identified component regions.

16. The non-transitory machine readable medium of claim 14 wherein said second scan uses more computationally intensive scanning algorithms than said first scan.

17. The non-transitory machine readable medium of claim 14 wherein said second scan has a higher resolution than said first scan.

18. The non-transitory machine readable medium of claim 13, wherein the set of instructions for extracting the component region further comprises a set of instructions for extracting the image representing the component region from the scan of the mea that includes the component region and rotating the extracted image to counter the rotation of the component region relative to the scanned electronic document.

19. The non-transitory machine readable medium of claim 13, wherein the image capture application further comprises a set of instructions for saving a plurality of component regions of a single type in a single storage structure.

20. The non-transitory machine readable medium of claim 13, wherein the image capture application further comprises a set of instructions for saving component regions of different types in different storage structures.

21. The non-transitory, machine readable medium of claim 13,

wherein the set of instructions for receiving the scanned electronic document comprises a set of instructions for sequentially receiving a plurality of scanned electronic documents,

the image capture application further comprising sets of instructions for:

in each scanned electronic document,

identifying a plurality of component regions within the scanned electronic document; and

extracting and storing each component region separately.

22. The non-transitory machine readable medium of claim 21, wherein the image capture application further comprises a set of instructions for saving data extracted from the plurality of component regions of a single type from different scanned electronic documents in a single storage structure.

23. The non-transitory machine readable medium of claim 22, wherein data extracted from the component regions of different types are stored in different storage structures.

24. The non-transitory machine readable medium of claim 13, wherein the sets of instructions for identifying, extracting and storing the component regions comprises sets of instructions for generating application program interface (API) calls to a set of image capture engines to identify, extract and store the component regions.

25. A method of enabling control of a scanner, the method comprising:

defining an image capture engine; and

defining application programming interfaces (APIs) for commanding said image capture engine to obtain an initial scanned electronic document, the APIs further commanding said image capture engine to automatically and without user input identify a plurality of component regions within the initial scanned electronic document that contain content, wherein a first component region is identified as containing content of a first type and a second component region is identified as containing content of a second type that is different from the first type of content based on attributes for a corresponding region, identity a set of scan parameters for the first and second component regions based on the attributes for the corresponding component region, and obtain, based on the set of scan parameters, a second scan of the first and second component regions by performing a plurality of different individual secondary scan operations, wherein each different secondary scan operation is performed for a different component region.

26. The method of claim 25, wherein the APIs are further for commanding the image capture engine to send an image garnered in a detailed scan of one region to a selected non-transitory machine application.

27. The method of claim 25 further comprising defining additional APIs for identifying a set of borders for each of separate region.

28. The method of claim 25, wherein the APIs for decomposing scan data into separate regions further comprise additional APIs for commanding a threshold operation on the scanned electronic document.

29. The method of claim 28, wherein the APIs for decomposing the scan data into the separate regions further comprise additional APIs for determining contiguous areas in the scanned electronic document after the threshold operation.

30. The method of claim 29, wherein the APIs for decomposing the scan data into the separate regions further comprise additional APIs for eliminating extraneously identified contiguous areas in the scanned electronic document after the threshold operation.

31. The method of claim 30, wherein the APIs for decomposing the scan data into the separate regions further comprise additional APIs for detecting edges of non-extraneous identified contiguous areas in the scanned electronic document.

32. The method of claim 31, wherein the APIs for decomposing the scan data into the separate regions further comprise additional APIs for determining borders of the detected edges.

33. The method of claim 25 further comprising defining additional APIs for selecting a set of scan parameters for detailed scan of each region.

34. The method of claim 25 further comprising defining a set of additional APIs for revealing a scanned image of a region that is rotated relative to the electronic scanned document, wherein said image is revealed at right angles to the region.

35. A non-transitory machine readable medium storing an image capture application for execution by at least one processing unit, the image capture application comprising sets of instructions for:

receiving a scanned electronic document comprising a first type of content and a second different type of content; and

automatically and without user input;

identifying, in the scanned electronic document, a first component region that contains the first type of content and a second component region that contains the second type of content based on attributes for the corresponding component region;

obtaining a second scan of each of the first and second component regions using first and second set of parameters determined by attributes for the corresponding component region; and

post processing the second scan of each of the first and second component regions by performing a first set of operations on the second scan of the first component region and performing a second different set of operations on the second scan of the second component region.

36. The non-transitory machine readable medium of claim 35, wherein the set of instructions for obtaining the second scan of each of the first and second component regions comprises a set of instructions for performing a plurality of different individual second scan operation, wherein each different second scan operation is performed for a different region automatically and without user intervention.

37. For an image capture application, a method of scanning a document, the method comprising:

receiving a scanned electronic document computing text content and image content; and

automatically and without user input;

identifying, in the scanned electronic document, a first component region that contains the text content and a second component region that contains the image content based on attributes for corresponding component region

obtaining a second scan of each of the first and second component regions using first and second set of parameters determined by the attributes for the corresponding component region, and

post processing the second scan of each of the first and second component regions by performing optical character recognition on the text content and performing a rotation operation that at least partially rotates the image content with respect to the scanned electronic document.

38. The method of claim 37, wherein obtaining the second scan of each of the first and second component regions comprises performing a plurality of different individual secondary scan operations, wherein each different secondary scan operation is performed for a different region automatically and without user intervention.