JPH03230287A - Information transmission and reception system - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To rapidly transmit necessary information from the transmitting side to the receiving side by segmenting a character image from image information and transmitting only the character image to the receiving means to execute character recognizing processing. CONSTITUTION:A document SH is read out by a facsimile 3 arranged on the transmitting side 2, a frame line recognizing part 4 recognizes the frame line of the image information read out by the facsimile 3 and segments the character image in the character frame F in each character. Then rearranging part 5 rearranges respective segmented character images on prescribed positions, the facsimile 3 converts the rearranged images into facsimile data and transmits the data to the receiving side 6 through a communication line 11. On the receiving side 6, respective character images segmented by a character segmenting part 8 are individually recognized by a character recognizing part 9. Since a character frame F is removed from the read image information and only the character image necessary for character recognition is transmitted to the receiving side, the image information can be transmitted within a short time.

Description

[Detailed Description of the Invention] [Industrial Application Field] The present invention uses, for example, a facsimile machine as a sending and receiving side device, and when transmitting and receiving information such as forms between these devices, there is a The present invention relates to an information transmitting/receiving system in which pattern recognition processing is performed.

[Conventional technology]

Traditionally, facsimiles were used on both the sending and receiving sides.
An example of an information transmitting/receiving system that allows information to be transmitted and received between these facsimiles is the Japanese Patent Laid-Open No.
Systems such as those disclosed in No. 8958 and Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 56-103571 are known. Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication 1989-1989
In the system disclosed in No. 58, image information is transmitted from a sending facsimile to a receiving facsimile at high linear density, and the image information received by the receiving facsimile is recognized by a character recognition unit. .

Furthermore, in the system disclosed in JP-A-56-103571, when the receiving facsimile cannot recognize the characters in the received image information, the sending facsimile transmits high linear density image information to the receiving facsimile. Once the message was sent, the receiving side would have to perform the character recognition process again.

[Problem to be solved by the invention]

By the way, in a character recognition device that recognizes characters such as numbers, alphabets, symbols, etc., a character frame is printed in advance around the area where the characters are to be written on the form in order to facilitate the character extraction process. has been done. This character frame is printed in dropout color for -m to prevent it from being captured as image information during optical reading, but if printed in dropout color, the form will be To solve this problem, for example, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 6(1983)-45884 states that even if a form with a character frame printed in a color other than a dropout color is used, the text will not be written in the character frame. A character recognition device is disclosed that can recognize characters and symbols, etc. By using this type of character recognition device, character frames on a form can be printed in a color other than the dropout color. The cost of forms can be reduced.

FIG. 5 is a configuration diagram of a conventional information transmitting and receiving system as described above, and the receiving side 51 of this information transmitting and receiving system 50.
When the above-mentioned character recognition device is used in the character recognition unit 53 provided in and receive 1ll
The I51 receives this through the facsimile 52, and the character recognition unit 53 removes the character frame from the received image information, performs character recognition processing, and uses the recognition result as a character code to be sent to a data processing device 54 such as a personal computer.
can be given to

However, such an information transmission/reception system 50
The facsimile 56 on the sending side 55 reads not only the image information of the characters written on the form, but also the character frames that are not in dropout color, and this is also sent to the receiving side 51 as image information. Receive at density ff
151 has the disadvantage that it takes a very long time to transmit.

In order to avoid this drawback, an information transmitting and receiving system 60 as shown in FIG. 6 has been proposed. In this information transmitting/receiving system 60, a character recognition unit 66 is provided on the transmitting side 64, and after reading a document whose character frame is not in a dropout color with a facsimile 65 on the transmitting side 64, the image information is transmitted to the facsimile 65 of the transmitting side 64.
! The character recognition unit 66 of the 1I64 is inputted. The character recognition unit 66 removes the character frame from this image information, performs character recognition processing, and returns the character code as a recognition result to the facsimile 65. The facsimile 65 uses this character code as information. The character code is transmitted to the receiving side 61, and the facsimile 62 of the receiving side 61 receives this character code and provides it to the data processing device 63. In this case, since the transmitting side 64 transmits only the character code as a recognition result to the receiving side, the transmission time is significantly shorter than when transmitting image information.

However, receiving IT! Since only the recognition results are sent to 161 and no image information is sent, the receiving side cannot check whether the recognition results are correct or not based on the image information and discover erroneous recognition. be.

The present invention solves these problems and makes it possible to quickly transmit necessary image information from the sending side to the receiving side even when a character frame in a non-dropout color is printed on a form. The purpose is to provide an information transmission and reception system.

[Means to solve the problem]

In order to achieve the above object, the information transmitting and receiving system of the present invention includes a transmitting means for cutting out a character image from image information and transmitting only the cut-out character image; and receiving means for performing character recognition processing on the text.

The transmitting means rearranges the cut out character images at a predetermined pitch and transmits them to the receiving means, and the receiving means rearranges the cut out character images at a predetermined pitch based on the predetermined pitch determined by the transmitting means. Cut out individual character images,
Character recognition processing may be performed on each character image.

Further, the transmitting means may rearrange only the character images necessary for the receiving means among the cut out character images and transmitting the rearranged character images to the receiving means.

[Effect]

When reading a form with a character frame printed in a non-dropout color by a transmitting means and transmitting it to a receiving means, the image information read from the form includes the character frame in addition to the characters written on the form. In such a case, in the information transmitting/receiving system configured as described above, the transmitting means cuts out a character image from the image information and transmits only the character image to the receiving means, and the receiving means receives the character image and performs character recognition. Process.

At this time, the transmitting means may rearrange the cut out character images at a predetermined pitch before transmitting them, or rearrange only the character images required by the receiving means among the cut out character images. You can also send it by

〔Example〕

Hereinafter, one embodiment of the present invention will be described based on the drawings.

FIG. 1 is a block diagram of an embodiment of an information transmission/reception system according to the present invention. In the information transmission/reception system 1 of this embodiment,
The sending side 2 includes a facsimile 3 that reads forms, etc., and when the facsimile 3 reads a form, etc. printed with a character frame that is not a dropout color, it recognizes the frame line from the image information and reads the text within the frame line. a frame line recognition unit 4 that does not cut out the character images existing in the image, and a rearrangement unit 5 that rearranges each of the cut out character images to a predetermined arrangement and returns the rearranged image data to the facsimile 3 as transmission information. is provided.

Also, on the receiving side 6, send lll! ! A facsimile 7 that receives image data transmitted from I2, a character cutting section 8 that cuts out character images from the received image data, and a character recognition section 9 that performs character recognition processing on each cut out character image. A data processing device 10 such as a personal computer is provided to which a character code as a recognition result is provided.

Next, in the information transmitting and receiving system 1 having such a configuration,
For example, the processing operation when a form SH as shown in FIG. 2 is read by the facsimile 3 of transmission 11'12 will be explained.

Note that the form SH shown in FIG. 2 has a character frame F that is not a dropout color printed in advance, and characters such as numbers, alphabets, symbols, etc. to be recognized are written in the character frame F with a pencil or the like. In addition, in some of the character frames F, guide characters ``Item'', ``Quantity'', and ``Price'' are printed in advance instead of in dropout color to make it easier for the person filling out the form SH to write in the characters. Suppose that

Send such a form SH 111I2 facsimile 3
When read, the read image information includes, in addition to the written characters, images of the character frame F, which is not a dropout color, and the guide character. A frame line recognition unit 4 recognizes the frame lines in the image information read by the facsimile machine 3, and cuts out character images within the character frame F character by character. FIG. 3 shows the cutout result P1 of the character image cut out in this way.

Next, the rearrangement unit 5 rearranges each cut-out character image into a predetermined arrangement as shown in the cut-out result P1. FIG. 4 shows image data P2 that has been rearranged, and in the example of FIG. A specific column pitch d1 determined to facilitate character cutting out. The rearrangement is performed at a row pitch of d2. Also, image data P2
is the offset OF, OF2 in the first space of column 1 row.
is taken. Furthermore, at this time, character images that are unnecessary for recognition processing, that is, 1 guide character item, ``number'',
``Price J has been removed, and only the character images necessary for the recognition process in Reception l\!16 have been rearranged.

The image data P2 that has been rearranged in this way is
The data is returned to the facsimile 3, which converts it into facsimile data and sends it via the communication line 11.
It is transmitted to the receiving side 6. On the receiving side 6, the image data P2 is received by the facsimile 7, and the character cutting section 8 cuts out each character image included in the image data P2. That is, the character cutting section 8 cuts out the character images based on the pitches d and d2 used in the rearranging section 5 of the sending side 2, and in this case, since the pitches of each character image are the same, , for example, each character image is arranged in column direction 1
By projecting in the row direction, each character image can be easily and accurately cut out. Each character image cut out by the character cutting unit 8 is individually recognized by the character recognition unit 9, and sequentially inputted as a character code to the data processing device 1°, where predetermined data processing such as aggregation is performed. .

In this way, in this embodiment, even when a character frame other than a dropout color is printed on a form, the transmission lit
! In I2, the character frame F is removed from the image information obtained by reading this form, and only the character image necessary for character recognition is sent to the receiving side, so compared to the case where image information with a character frame is sent. , image information can be transmitted in a short time, and communication costs can be reduced.

Also, since a character image is sent to receive@6, send@2
If there is an error in the frame line recognition process, etc.

Or, in any case, such as when there is an erroneous recognition by the character recognition unit of the receiving full 16, the image is checked on the receiving side 6 and the erroneous recognition is confirmed without retransmitting the original image from the sending @ 2. Errors can be easily detected.

Furthermore, by transmitting character images rearranged at a specific pitch, each character image to be subjected to character recognition processing can be easily and accurately extracted in reception l1II6, thereby improving the recognition rate. can. Furthermore,
In transmission@2, if character images unnecessary for recognition are removed from the extracted character images, rearranged, and transmitted to the receiving side 6, the transmission time can be further shortened.

In the above embodiment, information is sent and received between facsimiles 3 and 7, but it is also possible to use a sending/receiving device other than a facsimile as long as it has the function of sending and receiving image information. . For example, instead of the facsimile 3 on the sending side 2, an image input device that reads and inputs images from a form, and an image transmitting device that sends rearranged character images to the receiving side 6 are provided separately. You can also use something.

〔Effect of the invention〕

As explained above, according to the present invention, a character image is cut out from image information and only the character image is sent to the receiving means for character recognition processing. image information can be transmitted to the receiving side at high speed, and thereby the receiving side can easily detect erroneous recognition.

Furthermore, if the transmitting means rearranges the cut out character images at a predetermined pitch and transmits them to the receiving means,
On the receiving side, individual character images can be easily and accurately cut out from the rearranged character images, and recognition is performed based on this, thereby increasing the recognition rate.

Further, by rearranging and transmitting only the necessary character images among the cut-out character images, the transmission can be performed at a higher speed, and the transmission time can be further shortened.

[Brief explanation of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram of an embodiment of the information transmission/reception system according to the present invention, FIG. 2 is a diagram showing an example of a form on which a character frame other than a dropout color is printed, and FIG. 3 is a diagram showing 11 of FIG. A diagram showing an example of a character image cut out from image information obtained by reading a vote; Figure 4 is a diagram showing the result of rearranging the character image shown in Figure 3 at a predetermined pitch; Figures 5 and 6 are FIG. 1 is a configuration diagram of a conventional information transmission/reception system. 1... Information transmission and reception system, 2... Sending side, 3...
・Sender side facsimile, 4... Frame line recognition unit, 5...
・Relocation unit, 6... Receiving side, 7... Receiving side facsimile, 8... Character cutting unit, 9... Character recognition unit, O... Data processing device,... Communication line

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1) Transmitting means for cutting out a character image from image information and transmitting only the cut out character image; receiving the character image transmitted from the transmitting means; and performing character recognition processing on the character image. 1. An information transmitting and receiving system comprising: receiving means for transmitting and receiving information. 2) The transmitting means rearranges the cut out character images at a predetermined pitch and transmits them to the receiving means, and the receiving means rearranges the rearranged character images at a predetermined pitch determined by the transmitting means. 2. The information transmitting/receiving system according to claim 1, wherein each character image is cut out based on the information, and character recognition processing is performed on each character image. 3) The information according to claim 2, wherein the transmitting means rearranges only the character images necessary for the receiving means among the cut out character images and transmits them to the receiving means. Sending and receiving system.