JP2991594B2 - Mail address reading device - Google Patents

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a mail address reading apparatus for optically reading address information written on a mail in a mail processing apparatus such as a mail address automatic reading / sorting machine.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, for example, an address reading apparatus in a mail address automatic reading / sorting machine analyzes image information on a mail, detects an address image, cuts out a character line, and cuts out a character. After recognizing the characters, the name of the town from the name of the prefecture to the name of the town or village is hierarchically recognized by comparing with the address word dictionary. In addition, since the word collation as the block information following the block information is basically impossible for word collation, the character recognition result is directly applied to perform the mail address classification.

[0003] Even if address information cannot be correctly recognized, classification is performed by recognizing a limited large name of a recipient. On the other hand, when reading the address and name of a subscription application using a general-purpose character reading device, character lines and characters are cut out using the entry frame at a predetermined position as a guide, and after recognizing the cut-out characters, Recognize written addresses by word matching. Furthermore, in order to clarify the distinction from a similar word (similar character), a furigana is also described, and the recognition result of both the kanji and the kana is edited to determine the address and the name.

[0004]

However, in the conventional address reading device, the name of the town and the name of the village are hierarchically recognized from the name of the prefecture and the name of the town and village where word matching is possible. Even if there are misread characters or rejected characters in the character recognition of the part, it can be recovered as a word, but the rejection of the number indicating the street and address following the street name information has little room for recovery, depending on the result of the digit recognition. There is a problem that the determination of address information is affected.

Accordingly, the present invention can uniquely determine address information with high accuracy even if a part of the address information contains unrecognizable characters, further improve the address recognition rate, and improve the speed of recipient name recognition. It is an object of the present invention to provide a mail address reading device that contributes to the improvement of the recognition rate.

[0006]

According to the present invention, there is provided an apparatus for reading a postal address, comprising: image input means for converting image information on a postal matter into an electric signal and inputting the same; and image information input by the image input means. Address area detecting means for detecting an address area in which address information including address information and a recipient name on the mail is described, and performing character recognition on the address area detected by the address area detecting means. Address recognition means for recognizing address information by performing, and when a part of the address information cannot be uniquely determined by the address recognition means, based on the recognized address information, a recipient name is stored in advance in correspondence with the address information. A recipient name recognizing means for recognizing the recipient name by selecting the contents of the recipient name dictionary,
Address determination means for uniquely determining address information based on the recognition result of the address recognition means and the recognition result of the recipient name recognition means.

Further, the mail address reading device of the present invention comprises:
Image input means for converting image information on a mail into an electric signal and inputting the same, and address information including address information and a recipient name on the mail are described from the image information input by the image input means. Address area detecting means for detecting an address area, address recognition means for recognizing address information by performing character recognition on the address area detected by the address area detecting means, and address information in the address recognizing means. If a part of the recipient name cannot be uniquely determined, based on the recognized address information, by selecting the contents of the recipient name character dictionary that stores the recipient name characters in advance in correspondence with the address information, each character of the recipient name Recipient name character recognizing means for recognizing, and when a part of the address information cannot be uniquely determined by the address recognizing means, based on the recognized address information, Recipient name word selecting means for selecting the contents of a recipient name word dictionary storing words of the recipient name in association with place information, recognition results of the recipient name character recognizing means, and selection results of the recipient name word selecting means And the address determination means for uniquely determining the address information based on the recognition result of the address recognition means and the determination result of the recipient name determination means. I have.

[0008]

[0009]

[0010]

According to the present invention, in address recognition, for example, if there is an unrecognizable character at the street or address indicating the block information constituting the address information, character recognition is performed on the recipient name corresponding to the unrecognizable character, and the word is recognized. By recognizing the address information, the address information is uniquely determined. Therefore, even if there are unrecognizable characters at the street or the address indicating the block information, the address information can be uniquely determined with high accuracy. It can also contribute to improvement in speed and recognition rate.

[0011]

An embodiment of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings. FIG. 1 shows a configuration of a mail address reading apparatus according to the present embodiment. In the figure, P is a postal matter, which is conveyed by a conveying path (not shown). Reference numeral 1 denotes a photoelectric conversion unit as an image input unit, which photoelectrically converts the conveyed mail P by optically scanning the mail P to input image information on the mail P.
It is composed of a light source that illuminates the top, a line sensor that receives the reflected light and converts it into an electric signal.

The image information of the postal matter P converted into an electric signal by the photoelectric conversion unit 1 is converted into a digital signal by the A / D conversion unit 2 and then sent to the destination area detection unit 3. The address area detection unit 3 analyzes the image information of the postal matter P,
An address area on the mail P in which address information including address information and a recipient name is described is detected, and the result is sent to the character line cutout unit 4.

The character line extracting unit 4 extracts each character line constituting the address information from the detected address area in units of lines, and sends the result to the character extracting unit 5. The character extracting unit 5 extracts each character of the extracted character line in character units, and sends the result to the town name recognizing unit 6. The town name recognizing unit 6 recognizes the characters from the prefecture name to the town / village name for the extracted characters, and stores (registers) the recognition result and the words of the prefecture name, city, ward, and town / village in advance. By comparing the contents with the contents of the word dictionary, the town name information up to the town and village is determined hierarchically, and the result is sent to the block recognition unit 7.

The block recognizing unit 7 recognizes the block information described after the determined town and village name, that is, the numbers indicating the streets and addresses in units of characters, and sends the result to the recipient name recognizing unit 8.
The recipient name recognition unit 8, which will be described in detail later, recognizes each character of the recipient name based on the recognition result of the block recognition unit 7, and then checks the recipient name against the contents of the recipient name word dictionary, thereby recognizing the recipient name. Recognize and send the result to the address determination unit 9.

The address determination unit 9 also receives the recognition result of the town name recognition unit 6 and the recognition result of the block recognition unit 7. Therefore, the address determination unit 9 determines and finalizes the address information by editing and integrating the recognition results of the street name recognition unit 6, the block recognition unit 7, and the recipient name recognition unit 8.

FIG. 2 shows an example of the result of extracting characters from the mail P, and FIG. 3 shows an example of the hierarchical structure of the address. For example, after the address area described as shown in FIG. 2 is detected, character line extraction and character extraction are performed, and the town name recognition unit 6
, A7 are recognized in the order of letters a1, a2,... A7, and words up to the town name are hierarchically recognized in the order of "Kawasaki-shi", "Sachi-ku", and "Yanagimachi" using the hierarchical structure of FIG.

With the end of recognition up to "Yanagimachi",
Subsequent characters are determined to be the street information and the street address, and the numbers and limited kanji for the street and the street are recognized. That is, if character recognition in the block recognition unit 7 can be uniquely determined, the address is determined from the result. However, if the recognition of numbers cannot be determined uniquely, for example,
"0" of "70" shown in characters a8 and a9 in FIG.
If it is not possible to determine whether the address is "6" or "6", the address is determined by combining the candidate character "0" or "6" with the key information and the recognition result of the recipient name.

That is, in the recipient name recognizing unit 8, the recipient name is generally located at the latter stage of the address area, and "sama,""dono,""kun,""san,""teacher," which is the accompanying information of the recipient name.
After searching using "line" as a keyword and detecting the character string of the recipient name, character recognition and word recognition of the recipient name are performed. For example, in FIG. 2, the character string "Taro Higashiyanagi" is determined as the recipient name using the character "sama" of the character a14 as a keyword, and the word recognition of "Taro Higashiyanagi" of the characters a10 to a13 is performed.

FIG. 4 shows the recipient name recognition section 8 in detail. That is, as described above, as a result of the recognition by the block recognition unit 7 that recognizes the numbers of streets and streets as block information, two blocks of “70” and “76” are set as block information candidates.
When one candidate is generated, the recipient name word dictionary 11 corresponding to “70” and “76” is used as a search result, ie, “Kawasaki City”, “Sachi Ward”, and “Yanagimachi” as search information. Is selected by the recipient name / word access controller 12. Here, in the recipient name word dictionary 11, various words of the recipient name are stored in advance in correspondence with the address information.

In the same manner as described above, the contents of the character dictionary 13 of the recipient names corresponding to "70" and "76" are selected by the character dictionary access controller 14 using the street name recognition result as search information, and the recipient name character recognition unit is selected. Send to 15.
Here, various characters of the recipient name are stored in the character dictionary 13 in advance in correspondence with the address information.

The recipient name character recognizing unit 15 calculates the similarity between each character of the recipient name extracted by the character extracting unit 5 and the character selected from the character dictionary 13.
Recognize each character of the recipient name. Then, the recognition result of each character is sorted in descending order of similarity, and the recipient name information storage 1
6 is stored.

Next, the word similarity calculation unit 17 calculates "7
Recipient name word dictionary 11 selected by 0 "and 76"
The similarity is calculated for each word between the words in the character string and the character recognition results stored in the recipient name information storage unit 16. Then, the contents of the word dictionary having the highest similarity are selected and fixedly output together with the block output result “70”.

FIG. 5 is a block diagram for explaining the processing of the recipient name recognition unit 8 in more detail. That is,
"Kawasaki City", "Sachi Ward", "Yanagimachi" address hierarchy information D1 and "7
The block information D2 of “0” and “76” is used as search information.
Access the mapping table 18. The mapping table 18 is a table for converting the input block information into the address of the dictionary pointer storage unit 19.

For example, the address X1 of the dictionary pointer storage unit 19 is addressed to the input of "70", and the address Xn is addressed to the input of "76". “4” in the dictionary pointer storage unit 19 addressed by the address X1 represents the number of recipient name characters corresponding to “70”, and Aa, Ab, Ac, and Ad represent addresses of the character dictionary 13 of recipient name characters, respectively. Similarly, “4” in the dictionary pointer storage unit 19 addressed by the address Xn represents the number of recipient name characters corresponding to “76”, and Am, An, Ao, and Ap represent addresses of the character dictionary 13 of the recipient name characters, respectively. Represents

As described above, the mapping table 18 accesses the dictionary pointer storage unit 19 and selects dictionary information corresponding to "70" and "76". The character dictionary access controller 14 stores, for example, “7” in the character dictionary 13.
0, "East,""Yanagi,""Fat,""Taro," and
“Mountain”, “field”, “one”, and “ro” corresponding to “76” are selected and sent to the recipient name character recognition unit 15. The recipient name character recognizing unit 15 recognizes each character of the recipient name by performing similarity calculation between each character of the recipient name and a character selected from the character dictionary 13, and determines the recognition result as a word similarity degree. It is sent to the calculation unit 17.

On the other hand, the recipient name / word access controller 12 accesses the recipient name / word dictionary 11 by using the address hierarchy information D1 and the block information D2 as search information in the same manner as described above, thereby obtaining “Taro Higashiyanagi” corresponding to “70”. , "7
“Ichiro Yamada” corresponding to “6” is sent to the word similarity calculator 17.

The word similarity calculating unit 17 calculates the similarity between the recognition result of the recipient name character recognizing unit 15 and the word selected from the recipient name word dictionary 11 on a word basis, thereby converting the word of the recipient name. Confirm uniquely.

FIG. 6 shows that the word similarity calculator 17
This is an example of determining a recipient name by performing word similarity calculation between a character recognition result and a word dictionary. In FIG. 6, the first place of the character recognition result is “East”, “Yanagi”, “Fat”, and “Akira”. As a result of the word similarity calculation, “Taro Higashiyanagi” is selected.
It is output together with the corresponding street and the address “70”.

FIG. 7 is a flowchart for explaining the process of determining the address of the recipient. The following description is based on this flowchart. In the street name recognition, after hierarchically processing the names of prefectures and towns and villages, the streets and streets are recognized in the street recognition. If there is no reject character as a result of the block recognition, the address of the recipient is determined, and the process is terminated. If there is a reject character, the address of the recipient is determined by recognizing the recipient name.

That is, if there is a reject character, the process of detecting the recipient name character, selecting the character dictionary of the limited recipient name relative to the reject character, and selecting the word dictionary of the limited recipient name relative to the reject character are performed. The detected recipient name character is subjected to a limited character dictionary and recognition for each character. The result of the character recognition determines the address of the recipient by performing word recognition with the limited word dictionary.

In the above embodiment, the case where the character "0" of the least significant digit of "70" cannot be recognized has been described.
For example, the character “7” of “70” is “1” or “7”
If it is not possible to determine whether
It is possible by accessing the word dictionary of "70".

For example, if the digit of the character "0" of "70" cannot be selected as a candidate, "70" to "7"
9 ", and the recipient name needs to be recognized.
□-丁
The character and word dictionary may be accessed for unrecognizable characters of Δ.

Further, in reading the address of a postal matter, as shown in FIG. 8, the name of the recipient does not always follow the address of the street. The name may be a company name as shown in FIG. 8A or an apartment name as shown in FIG. 8B. In the case of a company name, it is necessary to read the company name because mail is delivered to the company, and in the case of an apartment name, it is sufficient to read the personal name because it is delivered to an individual.

Therefore, for example, as shown in FIG. 9, if address "70" is a company name, the access flag (1) as a company name is set, and if address "76" is a personal name, the access flag (1) is changed. By adding an access flag (0),
It is possible to determine which word is to be selected in accordance with the address and the address, and to perform word recognition according to that.

As described above, according to the above embodiment,
In the address recognition, if there is an unrecognizable character in the number indicating the street or street as the block information, the address information is uniquely determined by character recognition and word recognition for the recipient name corresponding to the unrecognizable character. , Even if there is an unrecognizable character in the street or street address indicating the block information, the address information can be uniquely determined with high accuracy, and it also contributes to the improvement of the speed of the recipient name recognition and the improvement of the recognition rate. it can.

In the above-described embodiment, the case where there are unrecognizable characters in the streets and addresses indicating the block information constituting the address information has been described. However, the present invention is not limited to this. The same applies to the case where unrecognizable characters are included in the constituent town name information.

[0037]

As described above in detail, according to the present invention, in the address recognition, if there is an unrecognizable character in a part of the address information, character recognition and word recognition are performed for the recipient name corresponding to the unrecognizable character. As a result, the address information is uniquely determined, so that even if there is an unrecognizable character in a part of the address information, the address information can be uniquely determined with high accuracy, and the speed of the recipient name recognition and the recognition rate are improved. And a mail address reading device that can contribute to improvement of the mail address.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram schematically showing a configuration of a mail address reading device according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a diagram showing an example of a character extraction result from a mail.

FIG. 3 is a diagram showing an example of a hierarchical structure of an address.

FIG. 4 is a block diagram showing a recipient name recognition unit in detail.

FIG. 5 is a block diagram for explaining processing of a recipient name recognition unit in further detail;

FIG. 6 is a diagram illustrating an example of determining a recipient name by performing word similarity calculation between a character recognition result and a word dictionary.

FIG. 7 is a flowchart illustrating a process for determining a recipient address.

FIG. 8 is a diagram showing a description example of address information.

FIG. 9 is a diagram for explaining another embodiment of the present invention.

[Explanation of symbols]

P: mail, 1 ... photoelectric conversion unit (image input means), 2
... A / D conversion section, 3... Address area detection section, 4... Character line extraction section, 5... Character extraction section, 6... Street name recognition section, 7.
... block recognition unit, 8 ... recipient name recognition unit, 10 ... address determination unit, 11 ... recipient name word dictionary, 13 ... character dictionary,
15: Recipient name character recognition unit, 17: Word similarity calculation unit.

Continuation of the front page (58) Field surveyed (Int.Cl. ⁶ , DB name) G06K 9/00 G06K 9/62 G06K 9/72 B07C 3/14

Claims (2)

(57) [Claims] 1. An image input means for converting image information on a postal matter into an electric signal and inputting the same, and comprising, from the image information input by the image input means, address information on the postal matter and a recipient name. Address area detecting means for detecting an address area in which address information is described; address recognition means for recognizing address information by performing character recognition on the address area detected by the address area detecting means; When a part of the address information cannot be uniquely determined by the recognizing means, based on the recognized address information, the recipient name is stored in advance by selecting the contents of the recipient name dictionary that stores the recipient name in association with the address information. A recipient name recognizing unit to be recognized, and an address determining unit for uniquely determining address information based on the recognition result of the address recognizing unit and the recognition result of the recipient name recognizing unit. Address reading apparatus of mail, characterized in that Bei was. 2. An image input means for converting image information on a postal matter into an electric signal and inputting the same, and the image information input by the image input means comprises address information on the postal matter and a recipient name. Address area detecting means for detecting an address area in which address information is described; address recognition means for recognizing address information by performing character recognition on the address area detected by the address area detecting means; When a part of the address information cannot be uniquely determined by the recognizing means, based on the recognized address information, by selecting the contents of a recipient name character dictionary storing characters of the recipient name in advance in correspondence with the address information, A recipient name character recognizing means for recognizing each character of the recipient name, and when a part of the address information cannot be uniquely determined by the address recognizing means, based on the recognized address information. A recipient name word selecting means for selecting the contents of a recipient name word dictionary storing words of a recipient name in advance in correspondence with address information; a recognition result of the recipient name character recognizing means and the recipient name word selecting means A recipient name deciding unit that uniquely decides a recipient name based on the selection result, and an address deciding unit that uniquely decides address information based on the recognition result of the address recognizing unit and the decision result of the recipient name deciding unit. A mail address reading device comprising: