JP2924440B2 - Address description area detection device - Google Patents

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to an address description area detecting apparatus, and more particularly to an address description area detecting apparatus for detecting an address description area including an input image obtained by optically reading a destination printed on a mail.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, an address description area printed on a postal matter is detected by referring to a description position of a hyphen included in a block number, that is, a description position of a hyphen-expressed as 町 town 1-10. Did without.

[0003]

In the conventional method of detecting the address description area of a postal matter, when a lot of miscellaneous information other than the address is described on the postal matter to be read, the position of the address description area is determined. There was a disadvantage that it could not be detected correctly.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION An object of the present invention is to provide an address description area detecting device capable of correctly detecting an address description area even when a mail to be read contains a large amount of information other than an address. To provide.

[0005]

According to the present invention, there is provided an address description area detecting apparatus for detecting an address description area from an input image obtained by optically reading a destination content described in a mail, and further comprising: labeling the input image. A hyphen detecting unit that detects the written position of a hyphen included in the block number of the address based on the labeling result of the labeling unit, a labeling result of the labeling unit and the hyphen detecting unit. An address detection unit for detecting the address writing area based on the writing position of the hyphen is provided.

In the apparatus according to the present invention, the address description area detected by the address detection unit may include a description position in which a difference between the hyphen description position detected by the hyphen detection unit and a hyphen description position falls within a preset allowable range. It is configured to be set as a rectangular area including the labeling result.

[0007]

Next, the present invention will be described with reference to the drawings. FIG. 1 is a block diagram of one embodiment of the present invention. FIG.
In this embodiment, a block including a hyphen is detected from a labeling unit 12 that performs a labeling process on an input image 11 and a labeling process result 13 output by the labeling unit 12, and the position is output as hyphen-written position information 15. A hyphen detecting unit 14 and an address detecting unit 16 that inputs the labeling processing result 13 and the hyphen-written position information 15 to specify the position where the address is written and the occupation range and output the address written position information 17 are provided. It has a configuration.

Next, the operation of this embodiment will be described.

A labeling section 12 receives an input image 11 obtained by an optical imaging device (not shown) and performs a labeling process on the input image.

FIG. 2 is a diagram showing an example of an input image.
FIG. 3 shows the result of performing a labeling process on the input image. The result of the labeling process is represented by a rectangle,
For example, it becomes a block A. The hyphen is described as a hyphen a in the example of FIG. This hyphen a is subjected to a labeling process, and as shown in FIG.
It is designated by a hyphen area b as a rectangular area surrounding the hyphen. The basic feature of the present invention is to use the hyphen area b as a powerful clue when detecting an address description area starting from the postal code shown in FIG.

FIG. 4 shows blocks obtained as a result of the labeling process. The position of each block obtained by the labeling process can be specified in the X, Y coordinate system by specifying the position information (Xi, Yi) and the occupation range information (Xi, Wi). Here, i is 1 to n, and n is the total number of blocks obtained as a result of the labeling processing.

Now, a block that satisfies both of the following conditions 1 and 2 with respect to the result of the labeling process is found, and this is identified as a hyphen block.

Condition 1: H _HL ≦ H _i ≦ H _HU Condition 2: W _HL ≦ W _i ≦ W _HU H _HL , H _HU and W found in the above conditions 1 and 2
_HL and W _HU are both positive integers, and H _HL and H _HU are each a hyphen block shown in FIG.
The allowable upper and lower limits of the direction range Y _i , and W _HL and W _HL are the allowable upper and lower limits of the X direction range W _i of the hyphen block shown in FIG. 4, respectively, taking into account the shape of the target hyphen. It is set appropriately in advance. Moreover, the occupation range information H _i, W _i, the upper and lower limits are set in view of the hyphen area b is exhibited differences standing poles relative to other blocks as seen in FIG. 3 .

A rectangular area (X _H , Y _H , W _H ,
H _H ) is shown in FIG.

In the result of the labeling processing, the blocks (X _i , Y _i ,
A rectangular area constituted by W _i , H _i ) is set as an address description area c as shown in FIG.

Condition 3: fl ≦ X _H −X _i ≦ fu Condition 4: gl ≦ Y _H −Y _i ≦ gu Here, fl in condition 3 is a negative constant, fu is a positive constant, and gl in condition 4 Is a negative constant, and gu is a positive constant.

Conditions 3 and 4 mean that blocks included in the address description range c are determined by setting an allowable upper limit and an allowable lower limit for the difference between the position information of the hyphen area b and the position information of each block. The allowable upper limit and the allowable lower limit are appropriately set in advance in consideration of a determination target.

In this way, by detecting the written area of the address using the written position of the hyphen included in the block number as a clue, even if a lot of miscellaneous information other than the address is described, the written area of the address can be accurately detected. Can be detected.

[0019]

As described above, according to the present invention, in the address description area detecting device for detecting the description range of the address described in the postal matter, the position information of the result of the labeling processing of the hyphen included in the block number of the address is provided. And the occupation range information as keys, it is possible to accurately detect the address description area even when the postal object to be read contains a lot of miscellaneous information other than the address. There is an effect that can be done.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram of one embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a diagram illustrating an example of an input image in FIG. 1;

FIG. 3 is a diagram illustrating an example of a labeling processing result for the input image of FIG. 2;

FIG. 4 is a diagram showing in detail blocks included in the result of the labeling process of FIG. 3;

FIG. 5 is a diagram showing a hyphen-occupied rectangular area included in the labeling processing result of FIG. 3;

FIG. 6 is a diagram showing a detection result of an address description area with respect to the input image of FIG. 2;

[Explanation of symbols]

 11 input image 12 labeling section 13 labeling processing result 14 hyphen detecting section 15 hyphen writing position information 16 address detecting section 17 address writing position information 17

Claims (2)

(57) [Claims] An address description area detection device for detecting an address description area from an input image obtained by optically reading a destination content written on a postal matter, comprising: a labeling section for labeling the input image; A hyphen detecting unit that detects a written position of a hyphen included in a block number of the address based on a labeling result; and An address detection area detection device, comprising: an address detection unit that detects a description area. 2. The labeling result in which the address description area detected by the address detection unit has a description position in which a difference from a description position of the hyphen detected by the hyphen detection unit falls within a predetermined allowable range. 2. The address detecting area detecting apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the address setting area is set as a rectangular area including the following.