JPH07108227A - Address confirming device, mail address reading and dividing machine and data confirming device - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To enhance the correct answer ratio of character recognition by providing an address data reading means, first and second memory means storing address data and a third recognition means specifying and recognizing address data from the recognition results in first and second recognition means. CONSTITUTION:At first, the pattern signal obtained by scanning mail P in a photoelectric conversion part 9a is inputted to an address region detection part 11 and the binarization circuit 25 of a discrimination part 9b and only the binarization signal of an address entry region is taken out by a selection circuit 2. Next, in a town name character recognition circuit 33, the signal is collated with a town name address dictionary 17 and words are formed from adjacent characters. When the arrangement of the words as an address is obtained, they are outputted to an address editing part 23 and a large name is collated with a large name character dictionary 39 in a large-lot name character recognition circuit 35 and the discrimination candidate matrix of the large-lot name is formed and stored. The data of this large-lot name is matched by the address editing part 23 to output the division specifying data corresponding to an address.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to an address recognition device, a mail address reading / sorting device and an information recognition device.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art As a conventional technique, there is an address recognizing device for recognizing a letter of a mail in which an address including a town name and a large name is written. In such an address recognition device, the mail is irradiated with light and the reflected light from the mail is received. Further, character extraction and normalization are performed, then character recognition is first performed, and then address recognition is performed.

This character recognition is performed by referring to a character dictionary that stores a large number of characters as information. In the conventional address recognition device, this character dictionary was used for character recognition of both town names and large names. In other words, this character dictionary accumulates both the characters used in town names and the characters used in large names as information, so the recognition error rate increases when recognizing town names and large names. There was a point.

[0004]

As described above, in the conventional address recognition device, this character dictionary is used for character recognition of both town names and large names. In this character dictionary, both the characters used in the town name and the characters used in the Oguchi name are stored as information, so there is a problem that the misrecognition rate increases when recognizing each of the town name and the Oguchi name. was there. Therefore, an object of the present invention is to propose an address recognition device which eliminates the above-mentioned drawbacks and improves the correct answer rate of character recognition.

[0005]

In order to achieve the above object, the first invention comprises a reading means for reading the address information of a mail in which address information including a town name and a large name is previously described. The first storage means stores, as dictionary information, each character that constitutes the town name of the address information. Second
The storage means stores each character constituting the large name of the address information as dictionary information. The first recognizing means refers to the first storing means and specifies the town name of the address information read by the reading means. The second recognizing means refers to the second storing means and specifies the large name of the address information read by the reading means. Third
Is an information recognition device characterized by identifying and recognizing the address information from the recognition results of the first and second recognizing means.

In order to achieve the above object, the second aspect of the present invention comprises a reading means for reading the address information of the mail in which the address information consisting of the town name and the major name is described in advance. The first storage means stores, as dictionary information, each character that constitutes the town name of the address information. The second storage means stores, as dictionary information, each character forming the above-mentioned major name of the above-mentioned address information. The first recognizing means refers to the first storing means and specifies the town name of the address information read by the reading means. The second recognizing means refers to the second storing means and specifies the large name of the address information read by the reading means. The address recognition means is the above first
Also, the address recognition device is characterized in that, based on the recognition result by the second recognition means, the town name candidate and the large name candidate are matched to identify and recognize the destination information.

In order to achieve the above object, the third aspect of the invention is provided with a supply means for supplying a mail item in which address information including a town name and a large name is previously described. The reading means reads the address information of the postal matter supplied by the supply means. The first storage means stores, as dictionary information, each character that constitutes the town name of the address information. The second storage means stores, as dictionary information, each character forming the large name of the address information. The first recognition means refers to the first storage means and specifies the town name of the address information read by the reading means. The second recognition means refers to the second storage means and specifies the large name of the address information read by the reading means. The third recognizing means identifies and recognizes the address information from the recognition results of the first and second recognizing means. The sorting means is a mail address reading / sorting machine, which sorts and collects the mail items based on the address information specified and recognized by the third recognition means.

In order to achieve the above-mentioned object, in the fourth invention, a reading means for reading the above-mentioned unique information of the paper sheet in which the unique information consisting of the first character area and the second character area is described in advance. I have it. The first storage means stores each character forming the first character area of the unique information as dictionary information. The second storage means stores each character forming the second character area of the unique information as dictionary information. The first recognizing means refers to the first storing means, and the first information of the unique information read by the reading means.
Specify the information in the character area. The second recognition means identifies the information of the second character area of the unique information read by the reading means with reference to the second storage means. Third
The recognition means is an information recognition device characterized by identifying and recognizing the unique information from the recognition results of the first and second recognition means.

[0009]

In the address recognition device, the mail address reading / sorting device, and the information recognition device of the present invention, the information about the characters corresponding to the town name and the large name, or the first character area and the second character area is stored. Since the characters are stored in the means and the characters of the town name and the large name, or the first character area and the second character area are specified by referring to the storage means, the correct answer rate of recognition is improved.

[0010]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS An embodiment according to the present invention will be described in detail below with reference to the drawings. First of all, referring to FIG.
The configuration of the mail address reading / sorting machine will be described. FIG. 2 is a front view of the mail address reading / sorting machine of this embodiment, and FIG. 3 is a view showing an example of the mail.

The mail address reading / sorting machine 1 is provided with a supply unit 3, from which the postcards can be collectively and standing.
A postal matter P such as a sealed letter is supplied into the apparatus. As shown in FIG. 3, the postal information P is preliminarily described with address information including a town name and a large name. Here, "Roppongi, Minato-ku" is the town name, and "XX TV" is the major name.

The postal matter P supplied from the supply section 3 is conveyed to the take-out section 5, and in the take-out section 5, the postal matter P is conveyed one by one to the take-in and convey path 7. Intake transport path 7
Is composed of a belt, and the postal matter P is sandwiched and conveyed by this belt.

An address recognition unit 9 is provided on the downstream side of the take-in / conveyance path 7. The address recognition unit 9 reads and recognizes the address information described in the postal matter P, and causes various processes to be performed. The address recognition unit 9 is composed of a photoelectric conversion unit 9a and a discrimination unit 9b, which will be described in detail later.

The postal matter P that has passed through the address recognition unit 9 is then conveyed to the sorting unit 11. The sorting unit 11 is composed of, for example, a plurality of sorting boxes 13 ... Divided by address or postal code. The transportation to the sorting unit 11 is performed by the sorting transportation paths 15a to 15g.

In this way, the mail address reading / sorting machine 1 reads and recognizes the address information of the mail P supplied from the supply unit 3, classifies the mail P according to the recognition result, and sorts the boxes. 13 ...

Next, referring to FIGS. 1 and 4, the address recognition unit 9
The configuration of will be described. FIG. 1 is a block configuration diagram of an address recognition unit of a mail address reading / sorting machine according to the present embodiment, and FIG. 4 is a diagram showing character detection cutout according to the present embodiment.

Although the postal matter P is conveyed in the direction of the arrow a, the photoelectric conversion section 9a obtains a pattern signal by optically scanning and photoelectrically converting the postal matter P, and outputs this pattern signal. is there. The output signal of the photoelectric conversion unit 9a is input to the determination unit 9b that is subsequently connected.

The discriminating section 9b comprises an address area detecting section 11, a character recognizing section 13, a town name recognizing section 15, a town name address dictionary 17, a large name recognizing section 19, a large address dictionary 21 and an address editing section 23.

The photoelectric conversion section 9a is connected to the address area detection section 11 and the binarization circuit 25 of the discrimination section 9b. The address area detection unit 11 specifies the address area by coordinates among the information described in the mail P by using a method such as the bevel method, and detects it. After the detection, a signal indicating that the predetermined range is the address writing area is output to the selection circuit 27 described later.

The binarization circuit 25 converts the pattern signal of the postal matter P, which is input from the photoelectric conversion unit 92, into a binary signal according to a predetermined threshold value.
It is to be valued. The signal binarized by the binarization circuit 25 is output to the selection circuit 27.

As described above, the signals from the address area detection unit 11 and the binarization circuit 25 are input to the selection circuit 27. Of the binarized signals from the binarization circuit 25, the address description area Character detection / cutout circuit 29 for connecting only binary signals
Selectively output to.

The character detecting / cutting-out circuit 29 detects characters one by one from the binarized signal in the address description area input from the selecting circuit 27, for example, at an estimated pitch, and cuts out the characters.
As shown in FIG. 4, arcs and nodes are added. The arc here indicates a character candidate, and the node indicates a character break. In this way, the signal for each arc is output to the connected normalization circuit 31.

The normalization circuit 31 includes a character detection / cutout circuit 29.
The size of each character is normalized to a fixed size from the signal input from. The normalization circuit 31 is connected to the town name character recognition circuit 33 and the large name character recognition circuit 35.

The town name character recognizing circuit 33 is further connected to the town name character dictionary 37. The town name character dictionary 37 is referred to and recognizes the character corresponding to the town name.
List 0 types of character candidates. This recognition is performed, for example, by matching with a reference pattern in the town name character dictionary 37. The details of the town name character dictionary 37 will be described later.

The town name character recognition circuit 33 is connected to the town name recognition unit 15, and the town name recognition unit 15 is further connected to the town name address dictionary 17. In the town name address dictionary 17, addresses within the jurisdiction of the post office where the mail address reading / sorting machine 1 is installed are registered. Regarding the town name address, the town name recognizing unit 15 refers to the town name address dictionary 17 and selects and recognizes an existing town name among the character candidates listed in the town name character recognizing circuit 33.

The output of the town name recognition section 15 is sent to the address editing section 23 and the large name character recognition circuit 35. The large name character recognition circuit 35 is connected to the large name character dictionary 39, recognizes the character corresponding to the large name by referring to the large name character dictionary 39, and lists 10 types of character candidates as recognition results.

As described above, the town name recognizing unit 15 recognizes the existing town name, and the recognition result is fed back to the large name character recognizing circuit 35. Therefore, the character following this town name is used as the large name for character recognition. To do. This recognition is performed by the pattern matching method in the same manner as the operation in the town name character recognition circuit 33 described above. The details of the large name character dictionary 39 will be described later.

The large name recognition circuit 35 includes a large recognition unit 19
The large name recognition unit 19 is further connected to the large name address dictionary 21. In the large name address dictionary 21, large names within the jurisdiction of the post office in which the mail address reading and sorting machine 1 is installed are registered. Large name recognition unit 19
Regarding the major name, among the character candidates listed in the major name character recognition circuit 35, refers to the major name address dictionary 21 to select and recognize the existing major name.

The output of the large name recognition section 19 is sent to the address editing section 23 described above. As described above, the signals from the town name recognition unit 15 and the large name recognition unit 19 are input to the address editing unit 23.

In the address editing unit 23, the large name corresponding to the town name is stored as information, and the correct address information (existing town name and large name) is recognized by referring to this information.
Thereafter, the classification designation data, that is, the data designating which of the sorting boxes 13 ... Described with reference to FIG. The sorting unit 11 is controlled by this sorting designation data, and the mail P is assigned to the corresponding sorting box 1
It is stored in 3 ...

Next, referring to FIGS. 5 and 6, the character types registered in the town name character dictionary 37 and the large name character dictionary 39 of the post office under the jurisdiction shown in FIG. 3 will be described. FIG. 5 is a diagram showing the character types registered in the town name character dictionary of this embodiment, and FIG. 6 is a diagram showing the character types registered in the large name character dictionary of this embodiment.

5 and 6 specifically show the character types registered in the mail address reading / sorting machine of the Azabu Post Office, which is under the jurisdiction of the mail P described with reference to FIG. However, in the town name character dictionary 37, J corresponding to 55 character types
In the IS code / large name character dictionary 39, JIS codes corresponding to 122 character types are registered.

That is, the character dictionary, which is one in the past, is divided and used for recognizing the town name and the large name, respectively. Next, the operation of character recognition will be described with reference to FIGS. FIG. 7 is a flowchart showing the recognition operation of the town name character and the large name character of the address recognition unit of this embodiment, and FIG. 8 is the character recognition after the recognition result of the town name character of the address recognition unit of this embodiment. It is drawing which shows a candidate matrix.

In the mail address reading and sorting machine 1, the mail P is put into the supply unit 3. The postal matter P put into the supply unit 3 is taken out one by one at the take-out unit 5 and is first conveyed to the address recognition unit 9 by the take-in conveyance path 7.

In the address recognition section 9, first, the photoelectric conversion section 9a optically scans the mail P to obtain a pattern signal. This pattern signal is input to the address area detection unit 11 on the one hand and to the binarization circuit 25 of the discrimination unit 9b on the one hand, and the selection circuit 27 extracts only the binarization signal of the address description area. This binarized signal is normalized to a certain size by giving arcs a to e to each character in the character detection / cutout circuit 29 and the normalization circuit 31.

Next, as shown in the flow chart of FIG.
The town name character recognition circuit 33 collates with the town name character dictionary 37 to create and store an identification candidate matrix (step 1). That is, as shown in FIG. 8, character candidates are listed from the 1st to the 10th for each character.

The identification candidate matrix may be stored in the town name character recognizing circuit 33 by providing a memory, or by a separate memory. After step 1, the identification candidate matrix is output to the town name recognizing unit 15, and the town name recognizing unit 15 collates with the town name address dictionary 17 to create words with concatenated characters (step 2). That is, for each combination of character candidates, one that matches the word registered in the town name address dictionary 17 is obtained. Here, the character shown by the wavy line in FIG. 8 is selected.

After step 2, the town name recognizing unit 15 determines whether or not a word sequence as an address can be obtained (step 3). As a result of the determination in step 3, when the word sequence as the address is obtained, the information as the address is output to the address editing unit 23, and the large name is written after the characters recognized by the town name recognition unit 15. Therefore, the search start position of the large name is set to the large name character recognition circuit 35.
Feedback to. In this way, the large name character recognition circuit 35 collates with the large name character dictionary 39 to create and store a large name identification candidate matrix (step 4).

The identification candidate matrix may be stored in the large name character recognition circuit 35 by providing a memory. After step 4, the identification candidate matrix is output to the major name recognition unit 19, and the major name recognition unit 19 collates with the major name address dictionary 21 to create words with concatenated characters (step 5). That is, for each combination of character candidates, the large name address dictionary 2
Search for a word that matches the word registered in 1.

After step 5, the information as the major name is output to the address editing section 23, and the address editing section 23 determines whether the town name and the major name can be matched (step 6).

As a result of step 6, the classification designation data corresponding to the address recognized as being matched is output. If no match is found, the reject processing of the postal matter P in which the address is described is performed. In addition, step 3
The reject processing is performed on the postal matter P in which the address in which the word sequence as the address cannot be obtained is described.

Although not described in this flow chart, since the large name is not always described in the postal matter P, when the town name can be recognized but the large name cannot be recognized, , Outputs classification designation data only by town name.

Next, the postal matter P is conveyed through the sorting conveyance paths 15a to 15g, and is stored in the predetermined sorting boxes 13 ...
As described above, since the information of the town name character dictionary 37 and the large name character dictionary 39 have been registered in the same dictionary in the past, there are many candidates and no character candidate exists within the 10th place like arc d in FIG. In some cases (the shaded parts are characters used only in large names), this can be improved by narrowing down the registered character types. The present invention is not limited to the above-mentioned embodiment, but can be variously modified without changing the gist of the present application.

[0044]

As described above, according to the present invention, the correct answer rate of character recognition can be improved.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram of an address recognition unit of a mail address reading and sorting machine according to the present embodiment.

FIG. 2 is a front view of a mailing address reading and sorting machine according to the present embodiment.

FIG. 3 is a diagram showing an example of a mail piece according to the present embodiment.

FIG. 4 is a diagram showing character detection cutout according to the present embodiment.

FIG. 5 is a diagram showing character types registered in a town name character dictionary according to the present embodiment.

FIG. 6 is a diagram showing character types registered in a large name character dictionary according to the present embodiment.

FIG. 7 is a flowchart showing a recognition operation of a town name character and a large name character of an address recognition unit according to the present embodiment.

FIG. 8 is a diagram showing a character identification candidate matrix after the recognition result of town name characters in the present embodiment.

FIG. 9 is a diagram showing a conventional character identification candidate matrix after a town name character has been recognized.

[Explanation of symbols]

 1 Mail address reading and sorting machine 9 Address recognition unit 9b Discrimination unit 23 Address editing unit 33 Town name character recognition circuit 35 Large name character recognition circuit 37 Town name character dictionary 39 Large name character dictionary

Claims (4)

[Claims] 1. A reading means for reading the address information of a postal matter in which address information consisting of a town name and a large name is written in advance, and a character storing each character constituting the town name of the address information as dictionary information. 1 storage unit, a second storage unit that stores each character that forms the major name of the address information as dictionary information, and the first storage unit is referred to to read the reading unit. First recognition means for specifying the town name of the address information, second recognition means for referring to the second storage means, and specifying the large name of the address information read by the reading means, An address recognizing device comprising: a third recognizing unit that identifies and recognizes the address information from the recognition results of the first and second recognizing units. 2. A reading means for reading the address information of a postal matter in which address information consisting of a town name and a large name is written in advance, and a character storing each character constituting the town name of the address information as dictionary information. 1 storage unit, a second storage unit that stores each character that forms the major name of the address information as dictionary information, and the first storage unit is referred to to read the reading unit. First recognition means for outputting the candidate for the town name of the address information, and second recognition for outputting the candidate for the large name of the address information read by the reading means with reference to the second storage means. Means and address recognition means for identifying and recognizing the address information by matching the town name candidate and the large name candidate from the recognition results by the first and second recognition means. Address recognition device characterized by . 3. A supply means for supplying a mail piece in which address information including a town name and a large name is described in advance, a reading means for reading the address information of the mail piece supplied by the supply means, and the address. First storage means for storing each character constituting the town name of information as dictionary information, and second storage means for storing each character constituting the large name of the address information as dictionary information, First recognizing means for identifying the town name of the address information read by the reading means by referring to the first storing means, and the read by the reading means by referring to the second storing means. Second recognizing means for specifying the major name of the address information; third recognizing means for recognizing and recognizing the address information from the recognition results by the first and second recognizing means; Identified and recognized by recognition means Serial based on the address information, the mail piece partitioning, mailpieces address reader sorter, wherein the dividing means for integration, that it consists. 4. A reading unit for reading the unique information of a paper sheet in which unique information composed of a first character area and a second character area is previously described, and the first character area of the unique information. A first storage unit that stores each of the constituent characters as dictionary information; a second storage unit that stores each of the characters that configures the second character area of the unique information as dictionary information; First recognizing means for identifying the information of the first character area of the unique information read by the reading means with reference to the storage means, and the reading means with reference to the second storage means. A second recognizing unit that identifies the information of the second character area of the unique information read in step 3, and a third recognizing and identifying the unique information based on the recognition results of the first and second recognizing units. And an information recognition device characterized by Place