WO2002052490A1

WO2002052490A1 - Method and device for reading the postcodes of addresses on mail

Info

Publication number: WO2002052490A1
Application number: PCT/DE2001/004813
Authority: WO
Inventors: Walter Rosenbaum
Original assignee: Siemens Aktiengesellschaft
Priority date: 2000-12-22
Filing date: 2001-12-20
Publication date: 2002-07-04
Also published as: EP1366461A1; DE10064529C1; CA2400391A1

Abstract

The invention relates to a method and a device for reading the postcodes of addresses on mail, said postcode (300) pinpointing the address to a part of a large road or several small roads. After an unsuccessful first read attempt (310), in which addresses could not be read clearly in the OCR unit (130), only the parts of the postcode (300) that roughly identify the addresses are first video-encoded (320) by operators employed for this purpose. The respective encoded result is then fed to the OCR unit (130) for a second read attempt (340), which takes into account the video-encoded result. If the read result of the OCR unit (130) is again unclear, the remaining parts of the postcodes (300) that identify the addresses in more detail are video-encoded (330) by operators employed for this purpose and in order to validate the result are respectively fed to the OCR unit (130) for a third read attempt (350), which takes into account the video-encoded result of the complete postcode (300).

Claims

claims

1. A method for reading postal codes from addresses of mail items, in which the images of the mail item surfaces having the addresses are recorded, stored and fed to an OCR unit (130) for recognizing the addresses and generating corresponding address codes, in the case of which no unambiguous reading results by the OCR unit (130), the relevant images are video-coded at at least one video coding location (200) and in which the postal code (300) identifies the address up to part of a larger street or several small streets, whereby

- After in the OCR unit (130) addresses could not be clearly read in a first reading attempt (310), the corresponding images of the broadcast surfaces with these addresses are first transmitted to video coding stations (200), where only the addresses are rough Descriptive parts of the postal codes (300) are video-coded (320) by the surgeons provided for them and then the respective coding result is fed to the OCR unit (130) for a second reading attempt (340), including the video coding result,

- and if the OCR unit (130) again does not have a clear reading result, the images of the mailing surfaces with the corresponding addresses are transmitted to further video coding stations (200), where the residues of the postal code (300) describing the addresses are video-coded by the operators provided for this purpose ( 330) and the OCR unit (130) for a third reading attempt (350) including the video coding result of the complete post code (300) for validating the result.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the part of the postal code (300) roughly describing the address is the destination 10 marks.

3. The method according to claim 1, wherein the part of the postal code (300) describing the address identifies the street, partial street for large streets or several small streets.

4. The method according to claim 1, wherein the video-coded post part codes are assigned to the respective mail items or images on the basis of identification numbers and are combined to complete post codes (300).

5. The method according to claim 4, wherein the identification numbers are applied to the mailings and read together with the addresses.

6. The method according to claim 4, wherein the recorded images of the shipment surfaces are stored under identification numbers.

7. The method according to claim 5, wherein the identification numbers are applied to the mailpieces as machine-readable codes.

8. The method ^{^} of claim 7, wherein the identification numbers be applied as a bar code on the mail items.

9. The method according to claim 1, wherein a preview coding method is used in the video coding.

10. Apparatus for reading postal codes of addresses of items with an automatic address reading system, the

a device for obtaining images of mail items (120), an OCR unit (130) for automatic evaluation of the images of the mail item surfaces having the address information, 11

Video coding stations (200) for video coding the images of the shipment surfaces containing the address information,

- Has an image controller (170) for controlling the data flow between the OCR unit (130) and the video coding stations, wherein

- After addresses in the OCR unit (130) could not be read unambiguously in a first reading attempt (310), the corresponding images of the transmission surfaces with these addresses are first transmitted to video coding locations (200), where only the addresses are rough Descriptive parts of the postal codes (300) are video-coded (320) by designated operators and then the respective coding result is fed to the OCR unit (130) for a second reading attempt (340) including the video coding result

- And if the OCR unit (130) reads again in an ambiguous manner, the images of the mailing surfaces with the corresponding addresses are transmitted to further video coding stations (200), where the residues of the postal code (300) describing the addresses are video-coded by the operators provided for this purpose (330) and the OCR unit (130) are each fed to a third reading attempt (350) including the video coding result of the complete post code (300) for validating the result.