JP2011233035A - Image editing apparatus, data entry system and program therefor - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To improve efficiency of work by displaying input information which is not held in an entry column of a form to an operator as a clear image.SOLUTION: Positional information of an entry field in a form image is extracted based on the form image received by a control unit 30 and a form name of the form image. An evaluation value of each of image areas in a separated form image is determined by referring to the positional information of the extracted entry field. A resolution of each image area is determined based on the determined evaluation value. The form image formed by each image area of the resolution determined by an image processing unit is displayed. Therefore, a small information amount and the information which is not held in the entry field are provided as a clear image.

Description

  The present invention relates to an image editing apparatus, a data entry system, and a program thereof.

  When recognizing mail, especially parcel destinations with OCR or a scanner, if the character cannot be recognized, the scanned form image is displayed on the operator terminal, and the contents and items described in the form image are displayed by the operator. There is a data entry system for confirming and inputting the data and storing it in a database or the like. In such a data entry system, as disclosed in, for example, Patent Document 1, when displaying a form image on an operator terminal, an image (background image) of the entire mail piece is displayed by applying a low resolution, and the form is displayed. There is a method of facilitating the operator's work while reducing the amount of data by applying a high resolution to the data portion (recognition target data) corresponding to the input field (destination) and displaying it over the background image.

JP 2004-504139 A

  However, according to the above-described method, a character entry portion that protrudes from an input field (field) to be read, which occurs when a destination is written by handwriting or due to printing misalignment, is not displayed in a high-resolution field image. FIG. 11 is an example of a form image 101 input in the technique of Patent Document 1. FIG. 12 is an example of a form image 105 displayed on the operator terminal when the form image 101 is input. Reference numerals 102 to 104 and 106 to 108 in FIGS. 11 and 12 represent the contents of the input fields of the read forms.

  When the technique of Patent Document 1 is used, the part of the input form image that protrudes from the input fields 106, 107, and 108 as shown in the form image 105 of FIG. 12 is displayed at a low resolution. For this reason, the operator may not be able to determine what kind of character is actually written in the character entry column of the form. In that case, the operator himself / herself finds the corresponding unknown part from the form itself of the reading source and determines the character, so that the work efficiency of the processing is lowered. Also, if the source form is for business use, for example, many batches are filed together in one file for batch processing, and it is not easy to find one corresponding form from among them. There was no work efficiency.

  The present invention has been made in order to solve the above-mentioned problems. An image editing apparatus, a data entry system, and a program for the image editing apparatus that can display a clear image to an operator even for input information that protrudes outside the entry field of the form. For the purpose of provision.

Therefore, in order to achieve the above purpose,
An image editing apparatus according to an aspect of the present invention receives a read form image and position information of an input field of the form image, and receives the read form image and position information of the input field. Means for dividing the form image into a plurality of image areas, means for evaluating the positional relationship with the position information of the input field for each of the divided image areas, and the area of the input field based on the evaluation An image processing unit having means for setting the highest resolution in the overlapping image area and setting a lower resolution as the distance from the position information in the input field is increased for the image area far from the position information in the input field. Characterized by comprising,
A data entry system according to an aspect of the present invention includes an image reading apparatus that reads a form image having an entry field, and a storage unit that stores position information of the form image read by the reading apparatus and an input field of the form image. And a server that creates form image information for performing data entry processing on information entered in each entry field on the form image, and an information terminal device that displays the form image information and performs data entry processing. In the data entry system, the server includes a unit that divides the form image into a plurality of image regions, a unit that evaluates a positional relationship between position information of the input field for each of the divided image regions, and the evaluation Based on the above, the highest resolution is set for the image area that overlaps the area of the input field, and the image area far from the position information of the input field is set to the previous resolution. An image processing unit having a means for setting a lower resolution as the distance from the position information of the input field increases, and creates the form image to be displayed on the information terminal device based on the resolution set by the image processing unit It is characterized by
A data entry program according to an aspect of the present invention includes: a read form image; receiving position information of an input field of the form image; dividing the form image into a plurality of image areas; A step of evaluating the positional relationship with the position information of the input field for each image area, and setting the highest resolution in the image area overlapping the area of the input field based on the evaluation, apart from the position information of the input field And a step of setting a lower resolution for the existing image area as the distance from the position information in the input field increases.

  According to the present invention, it is possible to provide a clear image to an operator regarding input information that protrudes outside the entry field of a form.

It is a block diagram which shows an example of the whole structure of the data entry system which concerns on this embodiment. It is an example of the form image of the object which performs image data creation processing concerning this embodiment. It is a flowchart which shows an example of the image data creation process by the image process part which concerns on this embodiment. It is a figure which shows an example of the form information table which concerns on this embodiment. It is a figure which shows an example of the input column position information table which concerns on this embodiment. It is a figure which shows the relationship between the form image which concerns on this embodiment, and the positional information on an input column. It is a flowchart which shows an example of the evaluation value definition process by the evaluation value definition part which concerns on this embodiment. It is a figure which shows the grid | lattice image area | region where the evaluation value was defined as "10" in the form image which concerns on this embodiment. It is a figure which shows an example of the form image in which the evaluation value definition process was performed by the evaluation value definition part which concerns on this embodiment. It is a figure which shows an example of the form image which the information terminal device which concerns on this embodiment receives. It is a figure which shows an example of the form image input by a prior art. It is a figure which shows an example of the form image displayed on an operator terminal by a prior art.

  In the following, a first embodiment of the present invention will be described with reference to FIGS.

(First embodiment)
FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing an example of the overall configuration of the data entry system 100 according to the present embodiment. First, the overall configuration of the data entry system 100 according to the present embodiment will be described with reference to FIG.

  The data entry system 100 includes a form reading device 11 for reading an image, an entry server 10 having a storage unit 20, a control unit 30, and an image processing unit 40, and a plurality of information terminal devices 50 connected thereto. .

  The form reading device 11 reads a form with a device such as a scanner and creates a form image. The read form image data is transmitted by the control unit 30 to the form image DB 21 in the storage unit 20 or the image processing unit 40.

  The storage unit 20 includes a form image database 21 (DB) that stores form image data read by the form reading device 11 and a form input field DB 22. In the form image DB 21, form image data and “form name” which is the type of the form image are registered in association with each other. In the form input field DB 22, input field definition information is registered for each form name. The definition information of the input field includes, for example, position information of the input field composed of upper left coordinates and lower right coordinates of the input field as shown in FIG. For example, a magnetic disk device, a semiconductor memory, an optical disk memory, or the like is used as the storage unit 20.

  The control unit 30 controls the form reading device 11, the storage unit 20, the image processing unit 40, and the plurality of information terminal devices 50. The control unit 30 transmits the form image data on which the “image data creation process” has been performed by the image processing unit 40 to the information terminal device 50 that is the connection destination.

  The image processing unit 40 includes an input field data extraction unit 41, an evaluation value definition unit 42, an image editing unit 43, and the like. When receiving the form image data read by the form reading device 11 from the control unit 30, the image processing unit 40 performs “image data creation processing” described later. As the image processing unit 40, for example, a scanner, a normal OCR, or an OCR configured by a PC on which a scanner and character recognition software are installed are used.

  The information terminal device 50 includes an input unit 51, a display unit 52, and the like. Here, three information terminal devices 50 are illustrated, but one or more information terminal devices may be connected. The information terminal device 50 and the control unit 30 may be connected via a network.

  Next, data entry processing of the data entry system 100 according to the present embodiment will be described.

(1) In the data entry system 100, a form to be read is scanned by the form reading device 11.

(2) The control unit 30 determines the type of the form scanned by the form reading device 11, and stores the determination result in the storage unit 20 together with the form image data.

(3) An operator who makes an entry activates an entry application on the information terminal device 50.

(4) When activated, the application of the information terminal device 50 communicates with the data entry system 100 and requests information on a form that can be entered.

(5) Upon receiving the above request from the information terminal device 50, the control unit 30 of the data entry system 100 extracts the form image data from the information stored in the storage unit 20, and the image processing unit 40 performs “image data creation processing”. Is executed. Subsequently, the control unit 30 transmits information such as form image data having a plurality of resolutions obtained by the image data creation process to the requesting information terminal device 50. In this embodiment, the amount of data transmitted by the image data creation process is suppressed.

  Note that the image processing unit 40 may receive the form image data read by the form reading device 11 instead of the form image data stored in the storage unit 20 and perform “image data creation processing”. Alternatively, the form image data that has undergone the “image data creation process” may be temporarily stored in the storage unit 20, and when the request is received from the information terminal device 50, it may be read from the storage unit 20 and transmitted.

(6) The application of the information terminal device 50 displays a form image based on the form image data subjected to the “image data creation process” transmitted from the control unit 30, and also displays an entry screen. The form image displayed at this time is displayed at the resolution determined by the “image data creation process” with the information described outside the input field, and the operator can easily identify the description.

(7) Data that has been data-entry based on the transmitted form image is transmitted from the information terminal device 50 to the data entry system 100 and stored in the storage unit 20.

  Next, the operation of the data entry system 100 when performing the above-described data entry processing step (5) will be described with reference to FIGS.

  FIG. 2 is an example of a target form image on which image data creation processing is performed, and FIG. 3 is a flowchart showing image data creation processing by the image processing unit 40. Here, it is assumed that the form image 300 shown in FIG. 2 includes “zip code” 301, “address” 302, and “phone number” 303.

  First, form information including form image data read by the image processing unit 40 is received (step S21). The form information includes form image data 201, a form name 202 indicating the type of the form image data 201, and the like, as in the table 200 shown in FIG. In the present embodiment, it is assumed that the image 1 shown in FIG. 4 is the form image data 300 shown in FIG. That is, the form name 202 (form type) of the form image 300 in FIG. 2 is “form A”.

  Next, the input field data extraction unit 41 of the image processing unit 40 extracts position information for each input field in the form image data 300 from the form input field DB 22 (step S22). The position information for each column is output to the evaluation value definition unit 42.

FIG. 5 is a position information table 500 of an input field of “form A” registered in the form input field DB 22 corresponding to the form image data 300. The position information for each input field is defined for each form name 501 as shown in FIG. 5. For example, the field 1 of “input field number” 502 is the first image (postal code) 301 of the form image 300. , And consists of “upper left coordinates” 503 representing the coordinates of the upper left portion of the input field and “lower right coordinates” 504 representing the coordinates of the lower right portion. That is, the position information of the form name 501 that is the same as the form name 201 of the form image 300 to be processed is extracted. Similarly, the position information is extracted from the second image (address) 302 and the third image (phone number) 303 of the form image 300 shown in FIG. 2 as shown in the column 2 and the column 3 of FIG.

In this embodiment, the input field is defined in advance as “a rectangle having a side parallel to the X axis and a side parallel to the Y axis of the target form image”. In other words, the input field is located at a position surrounded by “side passing through the upper left coordinate 503 and parallel to the X / Y axis” and “side passing through the lower right coordinate 504 and parallel to the X / Y axis”.

Although not shown, the definition of the input field can be performed for each form name 202 in the position information table 500 shown in FIG. 5 or can be performed for each input field number 502. Alternatively, it may be defined each time the image processing unit 40 receives form image data.

The position information in the input field is not limited to “upper left coordinates” and “lower right coordinates”. For example, the position information in the input field is “center coordinates: (X, Y)” and “radius: R”, and the input field is a circle with “center is“ (X, Y) ”and radius is“ R ”. May be defined.

  FIG. 6 shows the position information of the input field for the form image 300 extracted by the process of step S22. A column 1 shown in FIG. 5 is an input column 401 shown by a broken-line rectangle in FIG. 6, a column 2 is an input column 402 shown by a broken-line rectangle in FIG. 6, and a column 3 is a broken-line rectangle in FIG. This is the input field 403 shown.

  Subsequently, the evaluation value definition unit 42 of the image processing unit 40 divides the form image 300 into grid-shaped image regions having equal widths, and performs “evaluation value definition processing” for defining the “evaluation value” of each divided grid. Is performed (step S23). The evaluation value definition unit 42 outputs the defined evaluation value to the image editing unit 43. This evaluation value represents the proximity between the above-described form entry field and the divided grid. That is, a high evaluation value means that the position of the input field is close to the divided grid. Therefore, when the image area of the input field and the image area of the divided grid overlap, the evaluation value of the grid shows the maximum value. The division may be performed for each set number of pixels or may be performed in units of length such as mm (millimeter).

  The evaluation value definition unit 42 may define evaluation values for all grids in the form image 300. Further, when the evaluation value of the lattice defined by the evaluation value defining unit 42 is the minimum value, the evaluation values of all the lattices whose evaluation values are undefined may be set as the minimum value. The maximum value and the minimum value may be arbitrarily set by the user. Moreover, a numerical value may be used for an evaluation value and an alphabet may be used.

  The image editing unit 43 determines the resolution of each grid based on the evaluation value of each grid defined by the evaluation value defining unit 42, and creates form image data with a new resolution (step S24). The created new resolution form image data is transmitted to the information terminal device 50 by the control unit 30 (step S25).

  The evaluation value definition process in step S23 will be described in detail with reference to FIGS. FIG. 7 is a flowchart showing evaluation value definition processing by the evaluation value definition unit 42. Here, the maximum value of the evaluation value in the evaluation value definition process 42 is “10”, and the minimum value is “7”.

  The evaluation value definition unit 42 first divides the form image 300 into a uniform grid as shown in FIG. 8 (step S30). Next, the evaluation value definition unit 42 determines whether or not each grid rectangle divided in step S30 overlaps with the input field 401 in FIG. 6 based on the position information for each input field extracted from the form input field DB 22. To determine whether or not lattices with overlap are extracted. The evaluation value definition unit 42 sets “10” (maximum value) as the evaluation value of all the lattices having the overlap extracted as shown in FIG. 9 (step S31). That is, the grid where the input fields 401, 402, and 403 overlap with the image area is defined as the closest, that is, the evaluation value is the maximum value “10”. A grid where the input fields 401, 402, 403 and the image area overlap is set as a reference grid. Although the maximum value is evaluated as “10” here, “A” or “100” may be arbitrarily set. Further, the image area may be divided by a width specified by the user instead of the uniform width. FIG. 9 shows a grid image area 533 in which the evaluation value is defined as “10” for the form image 300.

  Subsequently, the evaluation value definition unit 42 defines the evaluation value of the lattice whose evaluation value is undefined among the lattices adjacent to the upper, lower, left, and right of the lattice in which the evaluation value is defined as “(evaluation value) −1” ( Step S32). When the evaluation value N is defined for all the lattices (No in step S33), the evaluation value defining unit 42 ends the evaluation value defining process.

  The evaluation value defining unit 42 is a case where there is a lattice in which the evaluation value N is undefined (Yes in Step S33), and the evaluation value defined in Step S32 is larger than “7” (minimum value). (Yes in step S34), the process returns to step S25, and the processes in steps S25 to S27 are repeated.

  The evaluation value defining unit 42 is a case where there is a lattice with an undefined evaluation value N (Yes in Step S33), and the evaluation value defined in Step S32 is “7” (minimum value) or less (Step S33). No in S34), the evaluation values of all the lattices whose evaluation values are undefined are defined as “7” (step S35), and the evaluation value defining process is terminated.

FIG. 9 shows a form image 300 that has been subjected to evaluation value definition processing by the evaluation value definition unit 42. In FIG. 9, a grid without shading is a reference grid whose evaluation value is defined as “10”. It shows that the evaluation value “9” is defined for the upper, lower, left and right regions (oblique shaded blocks) of the reference grid of the evaluation value “10”. Further, it is shown that the evaluation value “8” is defined for the upper, lower, left, and right regions (hatched blocks of the lattice) of the evaluation value “9”. Further, it is shown that the evaluation value “7” is defined for the upper, lower, left and right regions (multi-point shaded block) of the lattice of the evaluation value “8”.
The evaluation value definition unit 42 uses the information in the input field data to determine where the important image area in the target form image 300 is.

  The image editing unit 43 refers to the evaluation value presented by the evaluation value defining unit 42, sets the evaluation value “10” to the highest resolution, and outputs the evaluation value to the control unit 30. Also, the evaluation value “9” is output to the setting with a resolution lower than the evaluation value “10”. The evaluation value “8” is set to a resolution lower than the evaluation value “9” and is output to the control unit 30. Further, the evaluation value “7” is set to a resolution lower than the evaluation value “8” and is output to the control unit 30.

  Here, since the input information that protrudes from the input field is generally an area adjacent to the evaluation value “10”, the evaluation value “9” is set to a high resolution instead of a low resolution. Thus, the reading of the protruding input information can be remarkably improved.

  That is, in this embodiment, the positional relationship with the position information of the input field is evaluated for each divided image area, and based on the evaluation, the highest resolution is set in the image area that overlaps the input field area. For an image area far from the information, a lower resolution is set as the distance from the position information in the input field increases.

  Here, the evaluation values “10” to “7” are set to gradually lower resolutions, but the evaluation value “10” is the highest resolution, and the evaluation values “9” and “8” are the next lowest. The resolution may be set, and the evaluation value “7” may be set to the next lower resolution. Alternatively, the evaluation values “10” and “9” may be the highest resolution, and the evaluation values “8” and “7” may be the next lowest resolution.

  Then, the control unit 30 transmits the created new resolution form image data to the information terminal device 50 which is an operator terminal. A form image 600 received by the information terminal device 50 is shown in FIG. In the information terminal device 50, data entry is executed using the form image 600 of FIG.

  As described above, according to the present embodiment, the amount of information is small compared to the original form image, and information that protrudes from the input field is also transmitted to the information terminal device in a clear form image, thereby improving work efficiency. Can be improved. Further, the storage capacity of image data can be reduced by storing high-resolution image data (can be arbitrarily set) and deleting low-resolution image data.

  Note that the evaluation value defining process of the evaluation value defining unit 42 may be performed using a probability distribution model. For example, the position of the outer frame of the input field is set to 0, the probability that there is a character that protrudes x millimeters outward is calculated, and the evaluation value is defined with reference to the calculation result.

  The present invention is not limited to the above-described embodiment, and the design may be changed without departing from the gist of the invention.

  For example, the size of each grid may be designated instead of dividing the form image into grid-like image areas of the current width. In addition, the evaluation value definition process may not limit all divided grids, but may limit the definition target based on the distance from the outer frame of the input field. Moreover, you may define an evaluation value with the distance from the outer frame of an input column. In other words, the resolution in the input field is the highest resolution, the area within a certain distance from the input field is the medium resolution lower than the resolution in the input field, and the area far from the input field is lower than the medium resolution. It is good also as resolution.

DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 10 ... Entry server, 11 ... Form reading apparatus, 20 ... Memory | storage part, 21 ... Form image database, 22 ... Form input column database, 30 ... Control part, 40 ... Image processing part, 41 ... Input field data extraction part, 42 ... Evaluation value definition unit, 43 ... Image editing unit, 50 ... Information terminal device, 51 ... Input unit, 52 ... Display unit

Claims (4)

A storage unit for storing the read form image and position information of an input field of the form image;
Positional relationship between means for receiving the read form image and position information of the input field, means for dividing the form image into a plurality of image areas, and position information of the input field for each divided image area And the highest resolution in the image area that overlaps the area of the input field based on the evaluation, and from the position information of the input field for an image area that is far from the position information of the input field An image editing apparatus comprising: an image processing unit having a means for setting a lower resolution as the user leaves. Each of the divided image areas is a rectangle having an equal width,
The image editing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the position information of the input field is a diagonal coordinate value of the rectangle. An image reading device for reading a form image having an entry field;
A form image for performing data entry processing on information entered in each entry field on the form image, comprising storage means for storing a form image read by the reading device and position information of an entry field of the form image A server that creates the information;
A data entry system comprising an information terminal device that displays the form image information and performs data entry processing,
The server
Means for dividing the form image into a plurality of image regions;
Means for evaluating a positional relationship with positional information of the input field for each of the divided image regions;
Based on the evaluation, the image area that overlaps the area of the input field is set to the highest resolution, and for an image area that is far from the position information of the input field, the resolution decreases as the distance from the position information of the input field increases An image processing unit having means for setting to
A data entry system for creating the form image to be displayed on the information terminal device based on the resolution set by the image processing unit. Receiving the read form image and position information of the input field of the form image;
Dividing the form image into a plurality of image regions;
Evaluating the positional relationship with the position information of the input field for each divided image area;
Based on the evaluation, the image area that overlaps the area of the input field is set to the highest resolution, and the image area that is far from the position information of the input field is set to a lower resolution as the distance from the position information of the input field is increased. And steps to
A data entry program for causing a computer to realize the above.