Pre-processing E-book in scanned format

• US 10,261,987 B1
• Filed: 12/20/2017
• Issued: 04/16/2019
• Est. Priority Date: 12/20/2017
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Liu, Xi Xi, Jin, Yuan, Liu, Su, Xin, Fan Xiao, Chu, Zheng Ping AC, Huang, Yu
• Primary Examiner(s): Ries, Laurie A
• Application Number:
  US15/849,286
• Time in Patent Office: 482 Days
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/117 Tagging; Marking up details of markup languages G06F40/143; Designating a block; Setting of attributes style sheets, e.g. eXtensible Stylesheet Language Transformation [XSLT], G06F40/154
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/169 Annotation, e.g. comment data or footnotes
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/177 of tables; using ruled lines
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 10/235 based on user input or interaction
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 30/412 Layout analysis of documents structured with printed lines or input boxes, e.g. business forms or tables
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 30/416 Extracting the logical structure, e.g. chapters, sections or page numbers; Identifying elements of the document, e.g. authors
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 30/422 Technical drawings; Geographical maps

Abstract

This disclosure provides a method and system for pre-processing an E-book, wherein the E-book comprises text pages in scanned format and annotation pages in scanned format and the annotation pages contain annotation items for explaining text elements in the text pages. The method comprises: extracting annotations from the annotation items; identifying annotated elements from the text pages, wherein an annotated element is a text element that may be determined to be associated with one of the annotations; defining positions on the text pages for the annotated elements respectively; and storing the positions and the annotations. The positions and the annotations are correlated according to their relationship with the annotated elements.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented method for pre-processing an E-book, the E-book comprising text pages in scanned format and annotation pages in scanned format, the annotation pages containing annotation items for explaining text elements in the text pages, the computer-implemented method comprising:

extracting annotations from the annotation items and identifying annotated elements from the text pages, wherein an annotated element is a text element determinable as being associated with one of the annotations;

defining positions on the text pages for the annotated elements, respectively and by operation of one or more computer processors, wherein the positions and the annotations are stored and correlated according to their relationship with the annotated elements;

extracting annotation labels from the annotation items and storing the annotation labels in connection with corresponding ones of the annotations; and

extracting diagrams having diagram objects marked with object tags from the annotation pages, wherein the object tags of the diagrams are associated with the annotations in the annotation items according to the relationship between the object tags and the annotation labels for the annotations.

2. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the position for each one of the annotated elements is defined by (i) the page number of a text page containing the annotated element and an (ii) in-page position selected from:

a start point of the annotated element represented by a coordinate (x1, y1) on the text page;

an end point of the annotated element represented by a coordinate (x2, y1) on the text page;

a region that covers the annotated element having x-coordinate dimensions extending from (x1, y1) to (x2, y1) on the text page; and

a region that covers the annotated element having x-coordinate dimensions extending from (x1, y1) to (x2, y1) and y-coordinate dimensions extending from (x1, y1) to (x1, y2) on the text page.

3. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the pre-processed E-book is transmitted to a reading device for output, wherein the computer-implemented method further comprises defining in-diagram positions for the object tags associated with the annotations, wherein the in-diagram positions are stored in association with the annotations.

4. The computer-implemented method of claim 3, wherein the reading device comprises an E-book reader.

5. A computer-implemented method for using an E-book, the computer-implemented method comprising:

displaying a text page of the E-book, wherein the E-book comprises text pages in scanned format and annotation pages in scanned format, wherein the text pages include the text page, wherein the annotation pages contain annotation items for explaining text elements in the text pages, the E-book having been pre-processed to cause storing of the following information for the E-book;

in-page positions on the text pages, annotations extracted and that are respectively associated with the in-page positions, diagrams extracted from the E-book, and in-diagram positions of object tags for diagram objects in the diagrams;

detecting a user action at a location in the text page, wherein the location corresponds to one of the in-page positions; and

upon determining, by operation of one or more computer processors, that a retrieved annotation is associated with one of the in-diagram positions that corresponds to a diagram object in one of the diagrams, displaying an annotation associated with the in-page position, wherein the annotation is displayed along with the diagram on the text page, wherein the annotation is positioned at the one of the in-diagram positions.

6. The computer-implemented method of claim 5, wherein the annotation is displayed via a reading device.

7. The computer-implemented method of claim 6, wherein the reading device comprises an E-book reader.

8. A system of pre-processing an E-book, the E-book comprising text pages in scanned format and annotation pages in scanned format, the annotation pages containing annotation items for explaining text elements in the text pages, the system comprising:

one or more processors;

a memory coupled to at least one of the one or more processors;

a set of computer program instructions stored in the memory and executed by at least one of the one or more processors in order to perform actions comprising;

extracting annotations from the annotation items and identifying annotated elements from the text pages, wherein an annotated element is a text element determinable as being associated with one of the annotations;

defining positions on the text pages for the annotated elements, respectively and by operation of one or more computer processors, wherein the positions and the annotations are stored and correlated according to their relationship with the annotated elements;

extracting annotation labels from the annotation items and storing the annotation labels in connection with corresponding ones of the annotations; and

extracting diagrams having diagram objects marked with object tags from the annotation pages, wherein the object tags of the diagrams are associated with the annotations in the annotation items according to the relationship between the object tags and the annotation labels for the annotations.

9. The system according to claim 8, wherein the position for each one of the annotated elements is defined by (i) the page number of a text page containing the annotated element and (ii) an in-page position selected from:

a start point of the annotated element represented by a coordinate (x1, y1) on the text page;

an end point of the annotated element represented by a coordinate (x2, y1) on the text page;

a region that covers the annotated element having x-coordinate dimensions extending from (x1, y1) to (x2, y1) on the text page; and

a region that covers the annotated element having x-coordinate dimensions extending from (x1, y1) to (x2, y1) and y-coordinate dimensions extending from (x1, y1) to (x1, y2) on the text page.

10. The system of claim 8, wherein the pre-processed E-book is transmitted to a reading device for output, wherein the actions further comprise defining in-diagram positions for the object tags associated with the annotations, wherein the in-diagram positions are stored in association with the annotations.

11. The system of claim 10, wherein the reading device comprises an E-book reader.

12. A computer program product comprising a computer readable storage medium having program instructions embodied therewith, the program instructions executable to perform an operation for pre-processing an E-book, the E-book comprising text pages in scanned format and annotation pages in scanned format, the annotation pages containing annotation items for explaining text elements in the text pages, the operation comprising:

extracting annotations from the annotation items and identifying annotated elements from the text pages, wherein an annotated element is a text element determinable as being associated with one of the annotations;

defining positions on the text pages for the annotated elements, respectively and by operation of one or more computer processors when executing the program instructions, wherein the positions are stored and the annotations are correlated according to their relationship with the annotated elements;

extracting annotation labels from the annotation items and storing the annotation labels in connection with corresponding ones of the annotations; and

extracting diagrams having diagram objects marked with object tags from the annotation pages, wherein the object tags of the diagrams are associated with the annotations in the annotation items according to the relationship between the object tags and the annotation labels for the annotations.

13. The computer program product according to claim 12, wherein the position for each one of the annotated elements is defined by (i) the page number of a text page containing the annotated element and (ii) an in-page position selected from:

a start point of the annotated element represented by a coordinate (x1, y1) on the text page;

an end point of the annotated element represented by a coordinate (x2, y1) on the text page;

a region that covers the annotated element having x-coordinate dimensions extending from (x1, y1) to (x2, y1) on the text page; and

a region that covers the annotated element having x-coordinate dimensions extending from (x1, y1) to (x2, y1) and y-coordinate dimensions extending from (x1, y1) to (x1, y2) on the text page.

14. The computer program product of claim 12, wherein the pre-processed E-book is transmitted to a reading device for output, wherein the operation further comprises defining in-diagram positions for the object tags associated with the annotations, wherein the in-diagram positions are stored in association with the annotations.

15. The computer program product of claim 14, wherein the reading device comprises an E-book reader.

16. A system for using an E-book, the system comprising:

one or more processors;

a memory coupled to at least one of the one or more processors;

a set of computer program instructions stored in the memory and executed by at least one of the one or more processors in order to perform actions of;

displaying a text page of the E-book, wherein the E-book comprises text pages in scanned format and annotation pages in scanned format, wherein the text pages include the text page, wherein the annotation pages contain annotation items for explaining text elements in the text pages, the E-book having been pre-processed to cause storing of the following information for the E-book;

in-page positions on the text pages, annotations extracted and that are respectively associated with the in-page positions, diagrams extracted from the E-book, and in-diagram positions of object tags for diagram objects in the diagrams;

detecting a user action at a location in the text page, wherein the location corresponds to one of the in-page positions; and

upon determining that a retrieved annotation is associated with one of the in-diagram positions that corresponds to a diagram object in one of the diagrams, displaying an annotation associated with the in-page position, wherein the annotation is displayed along with the diagram on the text page, wherein the annotation is positioned at the one of the in-diagram positions.

17. The system of claim 16, wherein the system comprises a reading device, wherein the system annotation is displayed via the reading device.

18. The system of claim 17, wherein the reading device comprises an E-book reader.

19. A computer program product comprising a computer readable storage medium having program instructions embodied therewith, wherein the program instructions being executable to perform an operation for using an E-book, the operation comprising:

displaying a text page of the E-book, wherein the E-book comprises text pages in scanned format and annotation pages in scanned format, wherein the text pages include the text page, wherein the annotation pages contain annotation items for explaining text elements in the text pages, the E-book having been pre-processed to cause storing of the following information for the E-book;

in-page positions on the text pages, annotations extracted and that are respectively associated with the in-page positions, diagrams extracted from the E-book, and in-diagram positions of object tags for diagram objects in the diagrams;

detecting a user action at a location in the text page, wherein the location corresponds to one of the in-page positions; and

upon determining, by operation of one or more computer processors when executing the program instructions, that a retrieved annotation is associated with one of the in-diagram positions that corresponds to a diagram object in one of the diagrams, displaying an annotation associated with the in-page position, wherein the annotation is displayed along with the diagram on the text page, wherein the annotation is positioned at the one of the in-diagram positions.

20. The computer program product of claim 19, wherein the annotation is displayed via a reading device, wherein the reading device comprises an E-book reader.