JPH02247788A - Reader - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To improve operability and to easily use the reader by deciding the upper and lower parts of a book through the recognition of page numbers. CONSTITUTION:When a start button on an operation panel 10 is depressed after opening and setting up a book to be read out, a processor 13 detects the book and a reading starting command is applied to a scanner 11. The binary data of an image of the book read out by the scanner 11 are transferred to an image memory 14 by DMA transfer. The processor 13 calculates the peripheral distribution of the transferred image data and successively extracts the calculated result to recognize the image data. The recognized result is stored in a RAM area of a program memory 15. Then, the processor 13 decides the image data again by using the peripheral distribution, checks the recognized result, and if no value is detected in all positions, calls an attention through a speaker 19.

Description

[Detailed Description of the Invention] (Industrial Application Field) The present invention relates to a reading device that reads and recognizes printed characters, symbols, etc. and displays, generates, or outputs the recognition results as a character code, and particularly relates to a reading device that reads and recognizes printed characters, symbols, etc., and displays, generates, or outputs the recognition results as a character code. The present invention relates to a reading device that can determine the top and bottom of a book, for example, the top and bottom of the book.

(Prior Art) This type of reading device is extremely useful for facilitating reading for blind people. Conventionally, when using this type of reading device, a sighted person would either set the book on the reading device based on the book's top/bottom information given to them, or affix a mark on the book at a designated location that could be detected by touch. Then, using this mark as a clue, he could perceive the top and bottom of the book and set it in the reading device. .

(Problems to be Solved by the Invention) The conventional reading device described above does not have a function to determine whether the book is up or down. If the book does not have a mark, ask a sighted person to open the book vertically and then set the book, or set the book in both directions to make sure the reading device is working properly. A method was used in which if they matched, it was determined that the settings were correct.

Therefore, whichever method is used, it places an extra burden on the operator and is difficult to use. In particular, when using the experimental operation normality check method using bidirectional setting after fi, even if the book is set in the correct direction, it may not be possible to read it properly due to insufficient functions or performance of the reading device. If, for example, the book is a picture book and is not originally intended for reading devices, this is not a good judgment condition, and there is a risk of giving incorrect instructions to the operator.

(Means for Solving the Problems) A reading device according to the present invention reads the contents of a book by recognizing printed characters, etc., and includes a page number detection means for detecting and recognizing a page number outside the margin. and a top/bottom determination means for determining the top/bottom of the book based on the position of the detected page number and the recognition result.

That is, the reader according to the present invention recognizes the page number always printed on the book, and determines whether the book is up or down based on whether or not these characters can be read. Therefore, an operator reads a book set in an open state with a scanner, uses a processing device to measure the marginal distribution of the resulting binary data, and, taking into account the state of this marginal distribution, it is assumed that there are page numbers in the book. 0 Normally, the positions where page numbers exist in a book are fixed, so we cut out and recognize the binary data one by one from the positions where the page numbers may exist, and then Records whether the characters in can be recognized as numbers. Furthermore, it is determined whether the recognized numerical values are correctly consecutive on both the left and right pages, and when it is determined that they are consecutive, it is determined that they have been set correctly. If it is determined that it is not set correctly, “
"The book is not set upside down correctly" is uttered to alert the operator, or if the book is set upside down, subsequent processing corresponding to the case where the book is set upside down is performed.

(Example) Next, the present invention will be described in more detail with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing an overall configuration of an embodiment of a reader according to the present invention.

In this embodiment, binary data obtained by optically scanning and reading a book with a scanner 11 is transmitted via a bus 12 to an operation panel 10, a processor 13, and an image memory 14.
, program memory 15, pattern memory 16, dictionary memory 17, and speech synthesis circuit 18. The synthesized speech from the speech synthesis section 18 is output to the speaker 19.

The program memory 15 is a read-only memory (ROM) that stores programs for performing various controls.
It consists of a writeable and readable memory (RAM) section, which is used as a work area necessary for processing.

By the way, generally the place where the page number is printed on the paper of a book is fixed at a certain time, and whether it is vertical or horizontal writing, the page number is printed on the second page.
There are parts 21 to 26 shown in the figure.

Here, the circles in FIG. 2 indicate where the page numbers are located, and the line in the center indicates the center boundary when the book is opened. With this in mind, the operation of this embodiment will be described below.

The operator first opens a book that is not to be read, sets it in the reader, and then presses the start button on the operation panel 10. When the processor 13 detects that the start button is pressed, an instruction is given to the scanner 11 to start reading. The binary data of the corresponding page of the set book read by the scanner 11 is transferred to the image memory 14 by DMA transfer. Of course, the processor 13 may intervene to receive data byte by byte from the scanner 11 and store it in the image memory 14.

Assume that the data read in this way is as shown at 30 in FIG. The processor 13 then calculates the marginal distribution. The marginal distribution is the result of counting the number of black dots seen from a specific point in the vertical or horizontal direction, which is proportional to the number of black dots in the direction perpendicular to the reference line. This is drawn as a bar graph, and if you draw the marginal distribution for the 30 patterns, it will be 31.32.

The example shown in FIG. 3 is an example in which the books are set in exact alignment in the horizontal and vertical directions, but in reality, they are more often set in an inclined state. Therefore, the peripheral distribution is measured, and the difference between the peaks and valleys is compared. If the difference is small, the image is transferred to another area of the image memory 14 after being rotated 5 degrees clockwise.

Next, a marginal distribution for the transferred image data is calculated. Again, if the difference is small, rotate 5 degrees counterclockwise and perform the same process as before, increasing the rotation angle and continuing the process until the optimal angle is found. The image pattern and peripheral distribution data when the optimal angle was found are saved.

Next, extract the relevant position image data in the order of positions 21 to 26 shown in Figure 2 and perform recognition. Normally, page numbers can be considered to be within 4 digits, so if the page number is at position 21, the first row 4 characters from the beginning of the eye, position 22
Then, the 0 position 23, which is the last four characters of the first line, is the four characters from the beginning of the bottom line, the position 24 is the last four characters, and the positions 25 and 26 are the four characters in the center of each page.

The processor 13 first cuts out the character string at position 21.

The extracted character string is "reader". The processor 13 further extracts characters one by one from the beginning of this extracted character string and performs recognition. The pattern memory 16 is used for recognition. Character patterns are stored in the pattern memory 16, and comparisons are made with these patterns, and the one with the highest degree of similarity is taken as the recognition result. If the result of the recognition process is not similar to any pattern (referred to as a standard pattern) stored in the pattern memory 16, it means that the pattern could not be recognized. The recognition result is stored in the RAM area of the program memory 15.

The information stored in the RAM is data indicating whether or not recognition was possible and the recognized page number.

If the page is recognized, the number "1" is stored, and if the page is not recognized, the number "0" is stored. FIG. 4 is an example of the case where the page in FIG. 3 is recognized.

The 30 bytes after address A in the RAM are for storing recognition results, and the areas divided into 5 bytes from the beginning correspond to positions 21 to 26, respectively.

The first 1 byte of each area is an area for storing the result of recognition, and the remaining 4 bytes are an area for storing the recognized page number. If it cannot be recognized, a space (Δ) is stored in this area.

FIG. 4 shows an example of recognition results stored in the RAM.
．． 26, and the results are 321 at position 25 and 322 at position 26.

Next, the processor 13 uses the marginal distribution again to determine whether the book is written vertically or horizontally. Vertical or horizontal writing can be determined depending on whether the gap between the mountains in the peripheral distribution is larger in the vertical direction or in the horizontal direction. In the case of FIG. 3, the gap in the vertical direction is larger, so it can be considered as horizontal writing. For horizontal writing, the page number of the left page must be smaller than the page number of the right page, and vice versa for vertical writing. Therefore, next, the numerical value of the recognition result is checked to determine whether it conforms to this rule. If this rule is followed, the book is considered to be set correctly.

The reason for performing this check is that there is nothing wrong with numbers even if they are upside down, like when pages 18 and 19 are opened. This is because even if it is set, it may be mistakenly recognized as having been set correctly.

If, as a result of erroneous recognition, no numbers are detected in any of the positions 21 to 26, it is determined that the book is set upside down, and the processor 13 informs the speech synthesis circuit 18 that the r book is set upside down. A character code such as "Masu" is given, and the message is uttered through the speaker 19 to call the operator's attention.

The operator listens to this voice and sets the book upside down.

The processor 13 monitors the depression of the start button on the operation panel 10, and restarts the above-described process when the depression of the start button is detected.

In the above explanation, the method was explained by calling the operator's attention and resetting the book by hand. A method may be used in which the following processing is performed.

After the book is correctly set as described above, the processor uses the marginal distribution again to cut out the characters on the page one by one, recognize them, and store them in the RAM area.

Incidentally, there may be parentheses (<, )), a waveform (~), or a minus sign (-) before and after the page number. Additionally, the chapter name or other information may be printed next to the page number. Therefore, only what is recognized as a number is stored in RAM,
Other information is discarded and not stored.

When a certain number of characters are stored in the RAM, the dictionary memory 17 is used to divide the character string into phrases, readings are added, and the speech synthesis circuit 18 and speaker 19 are used to vocalize the characters. When all the utterances for that page are completed,
Please turn to the next page.'' to prompt the operator.

When the operator turns over the next page and presses the start button, the processor reads that page using the scanner 11, performs the same process as before, and reads out the book.

(Effects of the Invention) As explained above, the present invention enables a blind person to ask a sighted person about the top and bottom of a book by determining the top and bottom of the book through recognition of page numbers, or to determine the top and bottom of a book by searching for landmarks by hand. Since this is no longer necessary, the operability is further improved and the reading device becomes even easier to use.

[Brief explanation of drawings]

Fig. 1 is a block diagram of the overall configuration of an embodiment of a reading device according to the present invention, Fig. 2 is a diagram showing the positions of page numbers in a normal book, and Fig. 3 is an example of a read document and its contents. A diagram showing the peripheral distribution, and FIG. 4 is a diagram showing the recognition results stored in the RAM. 10...Operation panel, 11...Scanner, 12...
・Bus, 13...Processor, 14...Image memory, 15...Program memory, 16...Pattern memory, 17...Dictionary memory, 18...Speech synthesis circuit, 19...Speaker .

Claims (1)

[Claims] In a reading device that reads the contents of a book by recognizing printed characters, etc., there is a page number detection means that detects and recognizes the page number outside the margin, and a page number detection means that detects and recognizes the page number outside the margin, and the top and bottom of the book based on the position of the detected page number and the recognition result. A reading device characterized by comprising: upper and lower judgment means for judging.