JPH05120475A - Character recognizing device - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To recognize the characters in the picture image of a slip transferred in an arbitrary direction relating to a character recognizing device for recognizing a character in a picture image. CONSTITUTION:The image data of an input slip is stored in an image memory 1. A mark detecting part 2 detects a confirmation mark in an image out of a partial image to detects the direction of the input slip. If the detected direction of the slip is positive, a character segmenting part 6 extracts a character pattern by supplying an address to the image memory 1 as it is and then outputting read image data as it is. If the detected direction is reverse, a computing element 3 reverses the direction of the address to give it to the image memory 1. Then a converter 4 so rearranges the bit string of respective word's data of the read image data as to outputs it, thus, a character pattern is extracted. Further, a character recognizing part 7 recognizes the character pattern extracted by the character sigmenting part 6 and outputs corresponding character codes.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a character recognition apparatus for recognizing a character, and more particularly to a character recognition apparatus suitable for extracting and recognizing a character from an image transmitted by a facsimile.

In a character recognition device, for example, it is required to extract character information from image information transmitted from a facsimile device, recognize it, and output it as a character code.

In such a character information recognition device,
It is necessary that the characters in the image can be recognized even when the orientation of the image in the input form is not constant.

[0004]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, in this type of character recognition apparatus, recognition of characters in an image is performed only when image data of a form is stored in an input image memory in a specific direction determined by the apparatus. Was possible.

[0005]

In the above-mentioned conventional character recognition device, when the image data of the form is stored in the input image memory in a different direction from the predetermined direction, the character Could not be recognized. Therefore, in such a case, an error status indicating that the character cannot be recognized is output.

In this case, in order to recognize the character and obtain the character recognition result, the image data of the form in the correct direction is retransmitted via a facsimile from a remote place, or the input image is processed, Although it is necessary to obtain and re-input a rotated image, all of these methods have a problem of requiring a lot of cost and time.

[0007]

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION An object of the present invention is to solve the above-mentioned problems of the prior art, and to recognize a character pattern by extracting a character pattern from image information of a form transmitted by a facsimile machine. It is an object of the present invention to provide a character recognition device capable of recognizing a character in an image from an image of a form transmitted in an arbitrary direction.

[0008]

According to the present invention, in a character recognition device for extracting and recognizing a character pattern from an image of a form, an image memory 1 composed of a plurality of words having a fixed bit width for storing image data of an input form is provided. The mark detection unit 2 that detects a confirmation mark printed in advance in the image from the partial image data in the image memory 1 and detects the orientation of the input form from the detection result, and the order of addresses given to the image memory 1. , A converter 4 for inverting the order in the bit string of the data of each word read from the image memory 1, and when the orientation of the detected form is forward, the address given to the image memory 1 is unchanged. The image data input to the image memory 1 and read out is output as it is, and when the detected orientation of the form is the reverse direction, the address given to the image memory 1 is given. Is input to the image memory 1 by performing the conversion in which the order of the addresses is inverted by the arithmetic unit 3, and the read image data is obtained by the converter 4 changing the order of the bit string of the data of each word. By outputting the image data, a character cutout unit 6 for extracting a character pattern and a character recognition unit 7 for recognizing the character pattern from the character cutout unit 6 and outputting a corresponding character code.

[0009]

The image data of the input form is stored in the image memory 1, the confirmation mark printed in advance in the image is detected from the partial image data in the image memory 1, and the input form is detected from the detection result. Detects the direction of. Also, the computing unit 3
The order of the addresses given to the image memory 1 is reversed by the so that the order of the data of each word read from the image memory 1 in the bit string can be exchanged by the converter 4.

When the orientation of the detected form is the forward direction, the address given to the image memory 1 is directly input to the image memory 1 and the read image data is output as it is. On the other hand, when the detected orientation of the document is in the reverse direction, the address given to the image memory 1 is reversed by the arithmetic unit 3 and the read image data is given to the image memory 1 by the converter 4. A character pattern is extracted by outputting the image data obtained by changing the order of the bit string of the data of each word. Then, the output character pattern is recognized and output as a corresponding character code.

According to the present invention, when an image is input, even if the orientation of the form is not constant, the characters in the image can be recognized. Therefore, for example, the orientation of the form is erroneously transmitted from a facsimile. Even if you do, it does not become unrecognizable.

[0012]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS FIG. 1 shows the schematic construction of an embodiment of the present invention. 2 to 4 are for explaining forms and images to be input to this embodiment. FIG. 2 is an example of forms, FIG. 3 is an example of images and addresses of respective words, and FIG. An example of the image and the address of each word when input is shown in FIG. B _{1 and} B ₂ are left and right verify marks, and L is a line mark. Further, FIG. 5 explains the function of the converter, and shows the bit order inversion of 8-bit data. The operation of the present invention will be described below with reference to FIGS.

In FIG. 1, an image memory 1 is a memory composed of N words in the horizontal direction and M columns in the vertical direction. Each word has data of 8 bits width, and a form is transmitted via a facsimile. The binary image data when the data is transmitted is input. The address of each word is 0 at the upper left of the image and n + at the right of the address n, as shown in FIG.
1, the area under the address n is arranged to be n + N, and the transmitted image data is stored in order from the address 0 to the address.

Therefore, when the form is input to the facsimile apparatus from the upper end of the form, that is, "forward direction"
3 and when inputting from the bottom edge of the form, that is, in the “reverse direction”, the image data of the form is stored in the image memory 1 as shown in FIG. Stored in.

The selector 5 ₁ selects _one of the buses 8 _1, 8 _{2 and} 8 ₄ and indicates the state of the selected bus to the bus 8 ₃
Output to. The selector 5 ₂ selects one of the buses 8 _{5 and} 8 ₆ and outputs the state of the selected bus to the bus 8 ₇ .

The mark detection unit 2 is located in the vicinity of the left and right verification marks B _{1 and} B _{2 in} the image memory 1 when the form is input to the facsimile from the upper end of the form and when it is input from the lower end of the form. 3 is input, that is, four partial images indicated by E _{1 to} E ₄ in FIG. Then, when the verify marks B _{1 and} B ₂ are detected only in the partial images E ₁ and E ₂ , the “forward direction” is determined,
Only the partial images E ₃ and E ₄ have the verify marks B _1, B
If "_2" is detected, the "reverse direction" is judged. In other cases, "error" is judged. When the mark detection unit 2 operates, it is assumed that the selector 5 ₁ selects the bus 8 ₄ as the input bus.

When the mark detector 2 detects "forward", the selector 5 ₁ selects the input bus, bus 8 ₁ , and the selector 5 ₂ selects the input bus, bus 8 ₅ . When "reverse direction" is detected, selector 5 ₁
Selects the bus 8 ₂ as the input bus, and the selector 5 ₂ selects the bus 8 ₆ as the input bus.

The character slicing unit 6 generates an address of image data corresponding to a position near the line mark L in the image memory 1 when the image data of the form is input in the image memory 1 in the "forward direction". Then, the position of the line mark L is detected by inputting the corresponding image data, and characters are cut out from the partial image corresponding to the relative position with respect to the line mark L, and the cut out character pattern is stored in the bus 8 _8. To output sequentially.

The character recognition unit 7 sequentially recognizes the character pattern input from the bus 8 ₈ and outputs the recognition result as a character code to the bus 8 ₉ . The arithmetic unit 3 also calculates the address output from the character slicing unit 6 to the bus 8 ₁ ,
The calculation result is output to the bus 8 ₂ . The calculator 3 has an input value A
Then, the output value A ′ is given by the following equation. A '= M
* N-1-A

That is, the arithmetic unit 3 has 0, 1, 2, ...
The input sequence M * N-2, M * N-1 is set to M * N-1, M * N-1,
* N-2, ..., 2, 1, 0 has a function of reversing the order like the sequence. Further, the converter 4 has a function of inverting the bit order in an 8-bit data string as shown in FIG.

Next, the overall operation of this embodiment will be described. Now, as shown in FIG. 3, when the image data of the form is input in the "positive direction" to the image memory 1 of the present embodiment, first, in the mark detection unit 2, the direction of the form is ^. It is detected as "forward". Then, the selectors 5 _{1 and} 5 ₂ select the buses 8 _{1 and} 8 ₅ as input buses, respectively. As a result, the address of the image data, which is output from the character cutout unit 6 and is necessary for cutting out the characters corresponding to the "forward direction" form image, is read out by directly inputting it to the image memory 1. The image data is directly input to the character cutout unit 6 to sequentially cut out the character pattern.The character recognition unit 7 sequentially recognizes the cutout character pattern,
A character code representing the recognition result, and sequentially outputs to the bus 8 _9.

Further, as shown in FIG. 4, when the image data of the form is input in the "reverse direction" to the image memory 1, the mark detecting section 2 determines that the direction of the form is the "reverse direction".
Is detected. And the selectors 5 _1, 5 ₂
The buses 8 _{2 and} 8 ₆ are selected as the input buses. As a result, the character slicing section 6 outputs the address of the image data necessary for slicing the character corresponding to the ^ positive direction "form image, and the arithmetic unit 3 outputs the address sequence to the address. Is performed on the data output from the image memory 1, and the converter 4 performs conversion for changing the order of the bit string of the data of each word, and the data is output to the character cutout unit 6. input.

Since the image data of the form is in the "reverse direction", as compared with the case of the "reverse direction" in the image memory 1,
The storage order, that is, the address and the bit order of each word are opposite, but since the address is inverted by the calculator 3 and the bit order by the converter 4, the character slicing unit 6 generates The image data corresponding to the image in the case of "positive direction" of the address can be input, and therefore the character can be cut out. performs the recognition, and outputs the character code representing the recognition result to the bus 8 _9.

It goes without saying that the size of the image memory and the bit width of each word in this embodiment can be easily changed to values different from the above example.

[0025]

As described above, according to the present invention, in a character recognition device for extracting and recognizing a character pattern from an image of a form transmitted by a facsimile or the like, when the image is input, Even if the orientation is not constant, it is possible to recognize the characters in the image. Therefore, when the orientation of the form is mistakenly transmitted from the facsimile, it is possible to prevent the form from becoming unrecognizable, and error processing such as resending the image of the form in the correct direction from the facsimile is not necessary, which is involved in the error processing. It becomes possible to save manpower and improve the overall throughput including error handling.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a diagram showing a schematic configuration of an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is an explanatory diagram showing a form input in this embodiment.

FIG. 3 to FIG. 4 are explanatory diagrams showing images respectively input.

FIG. 5 is a diagram illustrating inversion of bit order of 8-bit data.

[Explanation of symbols]

 1 image memory 2 mark detection unit 3 arithmetic unit 4 converter 6 character cutout unit 7 character recognition unit

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. A character recognition device for extracting and recognizing a character pattern from a form image, the image memory comprising a plurality of words having a fixed bit width for storing image data of an input form, and partial image data in the image memory. From this, a mark detection unit that detects a preprinted confirmation mark in the image and detects the orientation of the input form from the detection result, a computing unit that reverses the order of addresses given to the image memory, and the image Image data read out by inputting the address given to the image memory as it is to the image memory when the orientation of the detected form is a positive direction, and a converter for changing the order of the bit string of the data of each word read from the memory Is output as it is, and when the orientation of the detected form is in the reverse direction, the address given to the image memory is changed by the calculator. A character cutout unit for extracting a character pattern by inputting the converted address into an image memory and outputting the image data obtained by performing the replacement of the read image data by the converter; A character recognition device comprising: a character recognition unit that recognizes a character pattern from a character cutout unit and outputs a corresponding character code.