JP2789873B2 - Optical character reader - Google Patents

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to an optical character reading apparatus, and more particularly to an optical character reading apparatus for recognizing characters written on a second copy sheet or later.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, as shown in FIG. 4, this type of optical character reading apparatus has a form length M1, positions M2 and M3 of a character frame W printed on the form, and a size M4 of the character frame W. ,
The information of M5 is given, the character position is set based on this information, and the character is recognized.

[0003]

However, in this conventional optical character reading apparatus, since only information on the character position in the form is given, when the characters on the second and subsequent sheets of the copy form are recognized, the copy is performed. If a character position shift occurs between the first copy form and the second and subsequent copy forms as a copy result when characters are written in the form, the character position information of the first copy form provided to the apparatus and the position shift Therefore, there is a problem that characters cannot be read.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The present invention has been made in view of the above-mentioned conventional circumstances, and an object of the present invention is to provide a novel optical character reading apparatus which can solve the above-mentioned problems inherent in the prior art. Is to do.

[0005]

In order to achieve the above object, an optical character reading apparatus according to the present invention comprises: a preprocessing unit for recognizing a reference side of a form from a pattern of input image data;
A reading fiducial mark cutout section that marks when writing characters on a copy voucher and cuts out a read fiducial mark copied on the second or subsequent copy voucher from the reference side, and a preset reading fiducial mark of the first copy voucher And a correction unit configured to correct a read character position based on an error between the position and the read reference mark position cut out by the read reference mark cutout unit.

[0006]

Next, a preferred embodiment of the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing an embodiment of an optical character reading apparatus according to the present invention.

In the figure, reference numeral 11 denotes an input unit to which character image data from a form is input, and 12 denotes a preprocessing unit which receives character image data from the input unit 11 and recognizes a reference side of the form from the image data. , 13 is a reading reference mark cutout section for cutting out a reading reference mark from the reference side recognized by the preprocessing section 12, and 14 is a reading reference mark position cut out by the reading reference mark cutting section 13 and a preset reading reference mark position. And 15 is a recognition unit that cuts out characters from the image data whose character positions have been corrected by the correction unit 14 and performs recognition. 16 is a recognition result obtained by the recognition unit 15. The output unit 17 outputs the input unit 11, the preprocessing unit 12, and the reading reference mark cutout. Part 13, the correction unit 14, recognition unit 15,
A control unit for controlling each of the output units 16 is shown.

Next, the operation of recognizing a character after correcting the character position in the character recognition of the second copy form will be specifically described.

As shown in FIG. 3, when the positions M2 and M3 of the character frame W and the reading reference mark positions L3 and L4 are given to the apparatus in advance as the copy form character positions, characters are copied at the time of copying as shown in FIG. When recognizing the second character of the copied form with the misalignment, a part where the image pattern is continuous with a black mesh in the preprocessing unit 12 is excluded from the form based on the form image data input to the input unit 11 in FIG. The boundary between the portion connected by the black mesh and the white mesh in the upper part of the form image data is recognized as the reference side 1, and the boundary between the portion connected with the black mesh and the white mesh in the right part of the form image data is the reference side 2. Next, the reading reference mark position L given in advance is read from the reference sides 1 and 2 recognized by the pre-processing
3. The read reference mark K after copying which is close to L4 and approximates the size of the read reference mark Y given in advance.
Cut out. Next, in the correction unit 14, differences L1 and L2 between the position of the read reference mark K cut out in the read reference mark cutout unit 13 and the position of the read reference mark Y given in advance are determined, and the copy form character given in advance is obtained. The position M2, M3 of the character frame W as a position is read, and the position is corrected by the difference L1, L2 between the position of the reference mark K and the read reference mark Y. Character position M2-
L1, M3-L2 are determined. Character position M found
Based on 2-L1 and M3-L2, the recognition unit 16 performs character recognition, and the recognition result is output from the output unit 17.

[0011]

As described above, according to the present invention,
In an optical character reader that recognizes characters written on the second and subsequent sheets of a copy form, characters cannot be read due to character misalignment during copying in the past. Mark the mark, when reading the character, because the position of the read character is corrected from the difference between the position of the read reference mark of the input data and the position of the read reference mark given in advance, the unreadable character is determined, The effect of significantly improving the character reading rate is obtained.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing an embodiment of an optical character reading apparatus according to the present invention.

FIGS. 2A and 2B are explanatory diagrams illustrating an example in which a character misalignment has occurred on a second copy form when characters are written in the copy form; FIG. 2A is a first copy form; FIG. 2B is a second copy form; It is.

FIG. 3 is an explanatory diagram showing an example of a read reference mark position and a character frame position given in advance, and an example of a read reference mark position and a corrected character frame position of a form in which a character misalignment occurs at this time.

FIG. 4 is an explanatory diagram showing an example of character position information in a general optical character reading device.

[Explanation of symbols]

 DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 11 ... Input part 12 ... Preprocessing part 13 ... Reading reference mark cut-out part 14 ... Correction part 15 ... Recognition part 16 ... Output part 17 ... Control part Y ... Reading reference mark K ... Reading reference mark after copying L1, L2 ... Y And the position difference between K and W. Character frame for entering the characters to be read

Claims (1)

(57) [Claims] 1. An optical character reader for recognizing characters of a second or subsequent copy form, a pre-processing means for recognizing a reference side of the form from an input image data pattern, and marking when a character is written on the copy form. A reading fiducial mark cutting means for cutting a reading fiducial mark from the reference side, and an error between a predetermined reading fiducial mark position of the first copy sheet and a reading fiducial mark position cut out by the reading fiducial mark cutting means. An optical character reading device for correcting a character position of a second copy sheet and thereafter.