JPH06223223A - Device and method for electronic filing - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To provide electronic filing device and method capable of storing a document without requiring user's operation and allowing a user to easily observe headers for document retrieval. CONSTITUTION:This electronic filing device is characteristically provided with a document reading means 1 for reading a document consisting of characters/ graphics as image data, a header candidate segmenting part 2 for segmenting candidates for an area to be the header of the document from the image data of the document read out by the means 1, a header determining means 3 for determining a header from the candidates segmented by the means 2, and a storage means 4 for relationally storing the header determined by the determining part 3 and image data having the header.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to an electronic filing apparatus which stores a part of a document as a heading and stores it in association with the document.
And a filing method.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art In recent years, a document is read using a scanner or the like, a part of the read document is used as a headline, and the read document is associated with the read document and stored in a magneto-optical disk or the like. Is displayed, and the headline of the document desired to be called is designated from the displayed headlines, and an electronic filing apparatus that retrieves and displays the stored text has been announced.

An example of a conventional electronic filing apparatus will be described below with reference to the drawings. FIG. 4 is a block diagram showing an example of a conventional electronic filing device. Figure 4
In the figure, reference numeral 41 is a document reading means for reading a document to be filing and supplying it to a finding / cutting-out means 43 and a storage means 44 which will be described later.

Reference numeral 42 is a head entry inputting means for inputting the coordinate position of the portion of the document to be the heading designated by the user. Reference numeral 43 denotes a head cut-out means, which cuts out the image data of the portion input as the headline from the image data of the document according to the coordinate position input from the head input input means 42.

Reference numeral 44 is a storage means, which is a document reading means 41.
The image data of the document read from the image data and the image data of the headline cut out by the head cutout unit 43 are stored in association with each other. Reference numeral 45 denotes a search target inputting means, which designates a heading of a document to be referred from a heading list showing headings stored in a storage means 44 displayed on a display means 47, which will be described later, when a stored document is searched. To do.

Reference numeral 46 is a search means for searching the storage means 44 for image data of a document stored in association with the headline designated by the search target input means 45. Reference numeral 47 is a display means for displaying the read document and the headings stored in the storage means 44 as a heading list.

The operation of the conventional electronic filing apparatus as described above will be described below. First, the document reading means 41 reads a document to be filed as image data. The image data of the read document is supplied to the finding / cutting-out means 43 and the storage means 44 and simultaneously displayed on the display means 47. Referring to the display screen, the part of the document that the user intends to use as a headline
When the coordinate position is inputted from the finding input means 42, the finding / cutting-out means 43 cuts out the inputted document portion from the image data of the document and supplies it to the storage means 44 as a heading. The storage unit 44 stores the image data of the headline received from the finding / cutting-out unit 43 and the image data of the document received from the document reading unit 41 in association with each other.

Further, when searching a document, when a user inputs a search instruction from an instruction means (not shown), the search means 46 reads out the image data of the headline stored in the storage means 44 and displays it. 47 displays a list of the index image data read by the search means 46. The headline of the document to be searched in the headline list by the user is the search target designating means 4
5 is selected and instructed. The search means 46 searches the image data of the headline stored in the storage means 44 for one that matches the image data of the instructed headline, and stores it in association with the image data of the instructed headline. The image data of the existing document is read from the storage means 44 and supplied to the display means 47. The display means 47 receives the image data of the document from the search means 46 and displays it as a document corresponding to the designated headline.

As a method of determining a headline, instead of inputting the positions of the upper left corner and the lower right corner of the area to be a headline as described above, a method of creating a found image by reducing the entire page of a document is also possible. is there.

[0010]

However, in the method in which the user himself / herself specifies the position of the headline region, the user must re-read the input document and manually specify the part to be the headline. Since this is not done, there is a problem that the user's hand is troubled. Further, in the method of reducing the entire one page of the document as the headline, the user's hand is not bothered, but even if the list of the headlines is looked at during the document search, since the size is reduced, the entire layout is reduced. It is only possible to determine the degree, which makes it difficult to understand,
There was a problem that it was not easy to use when searching for documents.

In view of the above problems, it is an object of the present invention to provide an electronic filing device and a filing method that do not bother the user when saving a document and that can easily see a headline when searching a document. And

[0012]

In order to achieve the above object, the first aspect of the present invention provides a document reading means for reading a document consisting of characters and / or graphics as image data, and a document reading means for reading the document. From the image data of the document obtained, a heading is selected from the heading candidate cutting-out means for cutting out a candidate for the heading of the document and the heading area candidate cut out by the heading candidate cutting-out means. The present invention is characterized by further comprising: a finding determining means for determining; and a storing means for storing the heading determined by the finding determining means and image data having the heading image in association with each other.

According to a second aspect of the present invention, the finding candidate cutting-out means according to the first aspect is provided with a concatenated rectangular cutout portion for cutting out a circumscribed rectangle of black pixels to be concatenated from the image data of the input document, and the concatenation. Based on the size and shape of the rectangle cut out by the rectangle cutout unit, it is determined whether the black pixels in the rectangle have a character attribute or a figure attribute. With respect to the rectangle attribute assigning unit that assigns an attribute and all the rectangles to which the character attribute is assigned in the rectangle attribute assigning unit, neighboring rectangles are integrated by the thresholds of distance, width, and height to recognize a region of one character. And in addition,
Based on the arrangement state of the regions of each character in the vertical and horizontal directions, the character region generation unit that assigns the attribute of vertical writing or horizontal writing, and the rectangle attribute assigning unit assigns each rectangle to the rectangle to which the drawing attribute is assigned. Characters for which one character area is recognized and the attribute of vertical writing or horizontal writing is given by the figure attribute candidate cutting-out portion that is cut out as a candidate of one area to be found and the above-mentioned character area generating portion The area of is divided into paragraphs,
And a character attribute candidate cutout portion that cuts out one paragraph as a candidate for one area to be found.

According to a third aspect of the present invention, the finding determination means according to the second aspect includes the finding feature inputting section for the user to input a feature of a portion to be used as a heading in the document and the finding candidate cutting means. The present invention is characterized by further comprising a finding selection unit that selects, from among the candidates of the cut-out heading region, a feature and a feature input from the finding feature input unit.

The invention of claim 4 is a character and / or
A document reading step of reading a document consisting of figures as image data; a finding candidate cutting step of cutting out a candidate of a region serving as a heading of the document from the image data of the document read by the document reading means; From among the candidates for the area to be the headline cut out by the candidate cutting means, the headline determination step of determining the headline, and the headline determined by the headline determination means and the image data having the headline image are associated with each other. A storing step of storing.

According to a fifth aspect of the present invention, the finding candidate cutting step according to the fourth aspect includes a first sub-step of cutting out a circumscribed rectangle of black pixels to be connected from the image data of the input document, and the first sub-step. From the size and shape of the rectangle cut out in one sub-step, it is determined whether the black pixels in the rectangle have a character attribute or a figure attribute. For the second substep of assigning attributes and all the rectangles to which the text attributes were assigned in the second substep above, neighboring rectangles are integrated by the distance, width, and height thresholds to create a region of one character. In addition, the figure attribute is assigned by the third substep of assigning the attribute of vertical writing or horizontal writing from the arrangement state of the area of each character in the vertical and horizontal directions and the second substep described above. Rectangle On the other hand, the fourth substep of cutting out each rectangle as a candidate for one area to be found and the third substep above are used to recognize the area of one character and to give the attribute of vertical writing or horizontal writing. And a fifth sub-step of dividing the character area for which each is performed into paragraphs and cutting out one paragraph as a candidate for one found area.

According to a sixth aspect of the present invention, the finding determination step according to the fifth aspect includes the first substep in which the user inputs a feature of a portion to be used as a heading in the document and the finding area candidate cutting step. A second sub-step of selecting a feature and a feature input from the found feature input unit from the extracted candidates for the area to be the headline.

[0018]

In the electronic filing apparatus according to the first aspect of the present invention, the document reading means reads a document consisting of characters and / or graphics as image data. The finding-candidate cutting-out means cuts out, from the image data of the document read by the document reading means, a candidate for a region serving as a headline of the document.

The finding determining means determines a heading from the candidates of the area to be the heading cut out by the finding candidate cutting means. The storage means stores the headline decided by the finding decision means and the image data having the headline image in association with each other. According to another aspect of the electronic filing apparatus of the present invention, in the finding candidate cutout unit according to the first aspect, the connected rectangle cutout unit cuts out a circumscribed rectangle of connected black pixels from the image data of the input document.

From the size and shape of the rectangle cut out by the concatenated rectangle cutout unit, the rectangle attribute assigning unit determines whether the black pixel in the rectangle has a character attribute or a graphic attribute. , A character attribute or a drawing attribute is given to each rectangle. The character area generation unit recognizes, as all the rectangles to which the character attribute is added by the rectangle attribute addition unit, adjacent rectangles by integrating the distance, width, and height thresholds as a one-character area, and The attribute of vertical writing or horizontal writing is added based on the arrangement state of the regions of each character in the vertical and horizontal directions.

The figure attribute candidate cutout section cuts out each rectangle from the rectangles to which the figure attribute is given by the above-mentioned rectangle attribute giving section, as a candidate for one area to be found. The character attribute candidate cutout unit divides the character region into which the character region generation unit recognizes the region of one character and gives the attribute of vertical writing or horizontal writing for each paragraph, and separates one paragraph. Cut out as a candidate for one area to be found.
In the electronic filing apparatus according to claim 3, in the finding determination means according to claim 2, the found-feature input unit inputs a feature of a portion that the user wants to be a headline in the document.

The finding selection unit selects, from the candidates of the area to be the headline cut out by the finding candidate cutting unit, one having the feature input from the found feature input unit.

[0023]

Embodiments of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings. FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing the system configuration of an electronic filing apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention. Figure 1
In FIG. 1, reference numeral 1 denotes a document reading means, which reads a document to be saved as image data and supplies the read image data to a finding candidate cutout means 2 and a storage means 4 which will be described later.

Reference numeral 2 denotes a finding candidate cutout unit, which has a rectangular candidate cutout unit 21, a rectangular attribute addition unit 22, and a character area generation unit 23, which will be described later, and describes the characters in the document and the drawings. The part that is displayed is cut out as a heading candidate area. Reference numeral 21 denotes a rectangle candidate cutout portion, which receives the image data of the document, scans one line at a time, cuts out a rectangle of a region where black pixels of the image data are continuous as shown in FIG. The coordinate value of the corner (x ₁ ,
y ₁ ), the coordinate value of the lower right corner (x ₂ , y ₂ ), width i, height h
Is to remember.

Reference numeral 22 denotes a rectangle attribute assigning unit, which refers to the coordinate values, widths, and heights of the upper left corner and lower right corner of each rectangle stored in the above rectangle cutout unit, and refers to each rectangle with the character A character attribute or a drawing attribute indicating whether the rectangle is a part of the rectangle or a part of the rectangle is added. Further, the rectangle attribute assigning unit 22 cuts out each one of the rectangles to which the figure attribute is assigned as a heading candidate area to which the figure attribute is assigned.

Reference numeral 23 is a character area generation unit, which pays attention to a rectangle to which a character attribute is added, scans the rectangle in the horizontal direction,
An unifying process for forming a character is performed by integrating the focused rectangle and another rectangle having a character attribute within a certain threshold. Then, it is determined from the character spacing of the integrated characters whether the document is in horizontal writing or vertical writing and is added to the document as a format attribute.

Further, by performing the integration processing as described above, based on the size such as height and width of the formed characters,
It is determined whether each character is an enlarged character, a reduced character, or a normal size character. In addition, an underline is a rectangle having a character attribute, which has a predetermined height, a width equal to or larger than a certain threshold value, and a character existing within a certain threshold value above the rectangle. .

Further, as shown in FIG. 3, the character area generating unit 23 divides the space a existing in the document into one paragraph, and cuts out one paragraph as a heading candidate area having one character attribute. . Reference numeral 3 denotes a finding determination means, which is a format determining unit 31 and a finding feature input unit 32 described later.
And a finding selection unit 33, and selects the features specified by the user input from the finding feature input unit 32 from the heading candidate regions cut out by the finding candidate region cutting unit 2. It refers to what determines the headline.

A format determination unit 31 determines whether the document is written vertically or horizontally depending on the attributes of the format. 32
Is a found-feature input unit for inputting information of features in a document that the user wants to create as a headline. Three
3 heading selection unit for selecting a heading from the heading candidates by referring to the information on the characteristics of the document input from the heading characteristics inputting unit and the processing result of the heading candidate cutout unit 2. is there.

Reference numeral 4 denotes a storage unit which stores the image data of the document read from the document reading unit 1 and the image data of the headline determined by the finding candidate creating unit 3 in association with each other. Reference numeral 5 designates a headline of a document that the user wants to refer to from a headline list showing headlines stored in the displayed storage unit 4 according to a user's instruction from the search target input means. For example, a mouse or the like is used for input.

Reference numeral 6 denotes a search means, which searches the storage means 4 and reads out the image data of the document stored in association with the headline input from the search target input means 5. Reference numeral 7 is a display means for displaying a document and a list of headings. The operation of the electronic filing device configured as described above will be described below.

First, the document reading means 1 reads a document to be saved as image data. The read image data is supplied to and stored in the storage means 4 and is also supplied to the finding candidate cutout means 2. The supplied image data is received by the connected rectangular cutout unit 21 of the cutout cutout unit 2, and the image data is scanned line by line from the upper left to the right to cut out a rectangle of a region where black pixels are connected, The coordinates, width, and height of the upper left corner and lower right corner of the rectangle are stored.

Next, the rectangle attribute assigning section 22 receives the coordinate values, the width and the height of the upper left corner and the lower right corner of each rectangle cut out from the connected rectangle cutting section 21, and determines which of the width and height of each rectangle. If the value of is less than or equal to a certain threshold value, the rectangle is given a character attribute. Further, the drawing attribute is given to the rectangle to which the character attribute is not given. One of the rectangles to which the figure attribute is added,
Cut out one as a heading candidate area.

When the character attributes and the drawing attributes have been added to the respective rectangles, the character area generation unit 23 focuses on the rectangles having the character attributes, and the rectangle attribute addition unit 22 determines the upper left corner of the rectangles. Receives the coordinate value, width, height, and attribute value of the lower right corner. Next, the rectangle is scanned in the horizontal direction, and the rectangle with the character attribute currently being focused on and the rectangle with other character attributes within a certain threshold are integrated as one character.

When the integration of the characters is completed, the distance between the left and right of the characters is detected.
Otherwise, the attribute of vertical writing is added. Also, each character is
It is determined whether the character is an enlarged character, a reduced character, or a character of a normal size, and an underline is detected. Further, one paragraph is cut out as one heading area. in this way,
When the headline candidate area to which the figure attribute or the character attribute is attached is cut out by the heading candidate cutout means 2, subsequently, the heading determination means 3 performs the following processing.

First, the found-feature input unit 32 inputs the features of a portion to be used as a document headline. At this time, the input feature may be an enlarged character portion of the document, a title portion of the document, an underlined portion, a figure portion, or the like. When the feature information of the portion to be used as the headline of the document from the headline feature input unit 32 is the feature of the portion in which the characters of the document are described, the format determination unit 31 determines that the format assigned to the area having the character attribute. Whether the document is written vertically or horizontally is determined from the attribute of. When the result of the determination is vertical writing, the finding selection unit 33 determines that the character area generation unit 23
With reference to the processing result of (1), a headline candidate area having a feature input from the found-out feature input unit 32 is selected from the headline candidate areas existing in the right half of the document and set as the headline of the document.

If the result of the determination is horizontal writing, the finding selection unit 3
3 refers to the processing result of the character area generation unit 23, selects a heading candidate area having the characteristics input from the found-characteristic input unit 32 from the heading candidate areas existing in the upper half of the document, As the heading. Specifically, if the input feature is the enlarged character portion of the document, the headline determining unit 3
3 selects a heading candidate area including a character determined to be an enlarged character by the character area generation unit 23 from the heading candidate areas and sets it as a heading.

When the feature of the title portion of the document is input, the heading candidate area including the first line of the document is selected from the heading candidate areas and set as the heading. Further, when the feature of the underlined portion is input, a headline candidate area including a rectangle determined to be underlined by the character area generation unit 23 is selected from the headline candidate areas and set as a headline.

On the other hand, when an input having a figure area as a characteristic portion is input from the found-feature input section, the area having the widest area among the figure headline candidate areas having the figure attribute is set as the headline. To do. As described above, the determined headline is stored in the storage unit 4 in association with the image data of the document read from the document reading unit 1.

As described above, the process for retrieving the document stored in the filing device is the same as the above-mentioned conventional method, and therefore its explanation is omitted. The method of assigning characters, figures, and format attributes performed by the finding candidate cutout unit 2 is publicly known and is not limited to the above embodiment.

[0041]

As described above, according to the present invention,
When determining the headline for document storage, the user does not need to specify the position of the headline having the characteristics specified by the user, and the user's hand is not bothered. In addition, since a part of the document is used as the headline, the headline is easier to see during the document search than when the entire page of the document is reduced and used as the headline.

Therefore, it is possible to provide an electronic filing device and an electronic filing method which are easy to use when storing and retrieving a document.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram of an electronic filing device of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a diagram for explaining a rectangular cutout process.

FIG. 3 is a diagram for explaining a break for each paragraph.

FIG. 4 is a block diagram of a conventional electronic filing device.

[Explanation of sign]

 1 Document Reading Means 2 Finding Candidate Extracting Means 3 Finding Determining Means 4 Storage Means 21 Concatenated Rectangle Extracting Sections 22 Rectangular Attribute Assigning Sections 23 Character Area Generating Sections 31 Format Determining Sections 32 Finding Feature Input Sections 33 Finding Selection Sections

Claims (6)

[Claims] 1. A document reading unit for reading a document consisting of characters and / or graphics as image data, and a candidate for a region serving as a heading of the document is cut out from the image data of the document read by the document reading unit. Heading determined by the heading determined by the heading determined by the heading determined by the heading-out candidate cutting-out means, among the candidates of the area to be the heading cut out by the heading-out candidate cutting-out means. An electronic filing device comprising: a storage unit that stores image data having the index image in association with each other. 2. The finding candidate cutout means cuts out a circumscribed rectangle of a black pixel to be connected from the input image data of a document, and a connected rectangle cutout part. The size of the rectangle,
Also, it is determined from the shape whether the black pixels in the rectangle have the attribute as a character or as the figure, and for each rectangle,
A rectangle attribute assigning unit that assigns a character attribute or a drawing attribute, and for all rectangles to which the character attribute is assigned in the rectangle attribute assigning unit, neighboring rectangles are integrated by the distance, width, and height thresholds to form a single character. Recognize as a region. Furthermore, a character area generation unit that adds an attribute of vertical writing or horizontal writing from the arrangement state of the areas of each character in the vertical and horizontal directions. Figure attribute candidate cutout section that cuts out as a candidate of one area to be found, and the above-mentioned character area generation section, recognizes the area of one character and gives the attribute of vertical writing or horizontal writing. The electronic filing device according to claim 1, further comprising: a character attribute candidate cutout unit that divides the region of the character into paragraphs and cuts out one paragraph as a candidate for a region that serves as one heading. 3. The finding feature determining unit inputting a feature of a portion that a user wants to use as a headline in a document, and a candidate for a region serving as a headline cut out from the finding candidate cutout unit. 3. The electronic filing apparatus according to claim 2, further comprising a finding selection unit that selects a feature having the features input from the finding feature input unit from among the features. 4. A document reading step of reading a document consisting of characters and / or graphics as image data, and a candidate for a region to be a heading of the document is cut out from the image data of the document read by the document reading means. A finding candidate cutting step, a finding deciding step of deciding a heading from among the candidates of the area to be the heading cut out by the finding candidate cutting means, and a heading decided by the finding deciding means And a storage step of storing the image data having the heading image in association with each other. 5. The finding candidate cutout step is a first substep of cutting out a circumscribed rectangle of black pixels to be connected from the image data of the input document, and the first substep. From the size and shape of the rectangle, it is judged whether the black pixels in the rectangle have the attribute as a character or the attribute as a figure, and the second sub that assigns the character attribute or the figure attribute to each rectangle. Step, with respect to all the rectangles to which the character attribute is added in the second sub-step, the neighboring rectangles are integrated with the thresholds of the distance, width, and height to recognize a region of one character, and further,
From the vertical and horizontal arrangement of the areas of each character, the third sub-step of assigning the attribute of vertical writing or horizontal writing, and the rectangle to which the drawing attribute is assigned by the second sub-step The fourth substep of cutting out a rectangle as a candidate for one area to be found, and the third substep above, recognition of the area of one character,
Also, the character area to which the attribute of vertical writing or horizontal writing is added is divided into paragraphs and one paragraph is divided into one.
The fifth sub-step of cutting out as a candidate for one area to be found, and the electronic filing method according to claim 4. 6. The finding determining step includes a first substep in which a user inputs a feature of a portion to be used as a heading in a document, and an area to be a heading cut out by the heading area candidate cutting step. The electronic filing apparatus according to claim 5, further comprising: a second sub-step of selecting, from candidates, a feature and a feature input from the found feature input unit.