JPH02272689A - Optical character reader - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To shorten processing time required for character recognition by controlling a switch so that character information is applied from a photoelectric conversion part to a slice selection part when the photoelectric conversion part outputs the character information for the initial line. CONSTITUTION:Characters written on paper e.g. to be read out are read out by the photoelectric conversion part 1, the conversion part 1 converts the characters into an electric signal indicating the density of the characters and outputs the signal as character information. A page memory 3 successively stores the character information outputted from the conversion part 1. At that time, a control part 2 controls the switch 4 so that the character information from the conversion part 1 is applied to a slice selection part 5 at the time of outputting character information for the 1st line from the conversion part 1, and at the time of outputting the character information for the 2nd line or after from the conversion part 1, character information from the page memory 3 is applied to the selection part 5. Consequently, the processing time necessary for character recognition can be shortened as a whole.

Description

[Detailed Description of the Invention] [Industrial Application Field] The present invention relates to an optical character reading device, and in particular to an optical character reading device that can start character recognition immediately after reading character information to shorten processing time. This relates to a reading device.

[Conventional technology]

Conventionally, this type of optical character recognition device consists of a photoelectric conversion section that optically reads characters, converts them into electrical signals representing their shading, and outputs them as character information, and a sheet of paper to be read that is output by this photoelectric conversion section. A page memory that stores one page of character information, a slice selection unit that binarizes the character information stored in this page memory at a predetermined gray level, and a slice selection unit that converts the binarized character information into rows by line. It is composed of a line memory that stores data in the line memory, and a character recognition section that performs character recognition for each character based on the character information stored in the line memory. Then, when the photoelectric conversion unit outputs character information and the first line or more of character information is stored in the page memory, the first line of character information is read from the page memory to the slice selection unit. It will be done.

The slice selection section sequentially binarizes the character information and outputs it to the line memory, and the line memory stores one line of the binarized character information, then sequentially reads it out and outputs it to the character recognition section.

[Problem to be solved by the invention]

In such conventional optical character reading devices, the character information output by the photoelectric conversion section is always temporarily stored in a page memory, and then read out from the page memory and subjected to subsequent processing. Then, when the first line of character information or more character information is stored in the page memory,
Since character information is read from page memory for the first time,
During this time, the slice selection section and the sections following it are on standby, and the start of the character recognition operation by the character recognition section is delayed by a time corresponding to the waiting time. In particular, this delay reduces the effectiveness of an attempt to shorten the processing time by performing the storage of character information in the page memory and the character recognition operation in parallel.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION An object of the present invention is to provide an optical character reading device that eliminates such drawbacks and can start character recognition immediately after reading character information, thereby reducing processing time.

[Means for Solving the Problems] The present invention provides a photoelectric conversion unit that optically reads characters, converts them into electrical signals representing the shading, and outputs the converted text as character information, and a photoelectric conversion unit that outputs one page of text. a page memory that stores the character information; a slice selection unit that binarizes the character information stored in the page memory at a predetermined gray level; In an optical character reading device comprising a line memory for storing, and a character recognition unit for performing character recognition based on the character information stored in the line memory, the character information output by the photoelectric conversion unit or the page memory a switching device that selects any of the character information stored in the photoelectric conversion unit and supplies it to the slice selection unit; and when the photoelectric conversion unit outputs the first line of character information, the character information from the photoelectric conversion unit The present invention is characterized by comprising a control section that controls the switching device so as to provide the information to the slice selection section.

〔Example〕

Next, embodiments of the present invention will be described with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing an embodiment of an optical character reading device according to the present invention. This device consists of a photoelectric conversion unit l that optically reads characters, converts them into electrical signals representing their shading, and outputs them as character information, and a page memory that stores one page of character information output by this photoelectric conversion unit. 3 and
A slice selection unit 5 that binarizes the character information stored in this page memory at a predetermined density level, a line memory 6 that stores the character information binarized by this slice selection unit 5 in units of lines, and this line memory a character recognition unit 7 that performs character recognition based on character information stored in the character recognition unit 7;
A switch 4 selects either the character information output by the photoelectric conversion unit 1 or the character information stored in the page memory and supplies it to the slice selection unit;
The apparatus includes a photoelectric conversion control section 2 that controls a switch 4 so as to provide the text information from the photoelectric conversion section to the slice selection section 5 when outputting character information for a line. Note that the line memory 6 has a double buffer structure including two line memories, and while writing character information into one memory, character information is read from the other memory.

Next, the operation will be explained. For example, characters written on a sheet of paper to be read are read by the photoelectric conversion unit 1, and the photoelectric conversion unit 1 converts the characters into electrical signals representing the shading of the characters and outputs them as character information. Page memory 3 is photoelectric conversion unit I
It sequentially captures and stores the character information output by the machine. At this time, the control unit 2 controls the switch 4, and when the photoelectric conversion unit 1 outputs character information for the first line, it gives the character information from the photoelectric conversion unit 1 to the slice selection unit 5, and When section 1 outputs character information from the second line onward, page memory 3
The slice selection unit 5 is made to give the character information from .

Therefore, when the first line of character information is output from the photoelectric conversion section 1, it is immediately binarized by the slice selection section 5 and stored in the line memory 6.

When the storage of character information for one line is completed, the character recognition unit 7 reads the character information from the line memory 6 and starts character recognition processing.

Next, when the character information from the second line onward is output from the photoelectric conversion unit 1, the character information from the page memory 3 is given to the slice selection unit 5, and the slice selection unit 5
The character information from is binarized and output to the line memory 6. Here, the line memory 6 stores the character information from the slice selection section 5 in the memory that is not currently outputting character information to the character recognition section 7. After completing the character recognition process for the character information on the first line, the character recognition unit 7 reads out the character information on the next line from the line memory 6 and similarly performs the character recognition process. Thereafter, character information for one line is sequentially stored in the two memories of the line memory 6, and the character information is stored in the character recognition unit 7.
processes them one after another until it reaches the last line.

In this way, in the optical character reading device of the present invention, the first one
The character information in the row is immediately binarized without being stored in the page memory, and is directly given to the character recognition unit through the line memory, eliminating the waiting time that would otherwise occur when character information is written to the page memory. The overall processing time required for character recognition can be reduced.

〔Effect of the invention〕

As explained above, the present invention includes a photoelectric conversion unit that optically reads characters, converts them into electrical signals representing their shading, and outputs them as character information, and a photoelectric conversion unit that outputs one page of character information. A page memory for storing, a slice selection unit that binarizes the character information stored in the page memory at a predetermined gray level, and a line memory that stores the character information binarized by the slice selection unit line by line. In an optical character reading device equipped with a character recognition unit that performs character recognition based on character information stored in the line memory, either the character information output by the photoelectric conversion unit or the character information stored in the page memory is a switch that selects and supplies the text information to the slice selection unit; and a control unit that controls the switch to supply the text information from the photoelectric conversion unit to the slice selection unit when the photoelectric conversion unit outputs the first line of text information. It is equipped with

Therefore, in the optical character reading device of the present invention, the character information on the first line is not stored in the page memory (it is immediately binarized and given directly to the character recognition section through the line memory, so The waiting time caused by writing character information into memory is eliminated, and the processing time required for character recognition can be reduced overall.

[Brief explanation of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing an embodiment of an optical character reading device according to the present invention. 1...Photoelectric conversion unit 2...Photoelectric conversion control unit Page memory switcher Slice selection unit Line memory character recognition unit

Claims (1)

[Claims] (1) A photoelectric conversion unit that optically reads characters, converts them into electrical signals representing their shading, and outputs them as character information; and a page memory that stores one page of the character information output by this photoelectric conversion unit. , a slice selection unit that binarizes the character information stored in this page memory at a predetermined gray level, a line memory that stores the character information binarized by this slice selection unit line by line, and this line memory In an optical character reading device comprising a character recognition unit that performs character recognition based on the stored character information, selecting either the character information output by the photoelectric conversion unit or the character information stored in the page memory and a switch for supplying character information from the photoelectric conversion unit to the slice selection unit when the photoelectric conversion unit outputs character information for a first line. 1. An optical character reading device comprising: a control unit for controlling an optical character.