JPH06251186A - Method and device for correcting character recognition error - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To easily and quickly perform the correcting work for a character recognition error by collating the error of a character string recognized by image reading with a word dictionary by bracketing in a word unit not in a character unit, and correcting the error comprehensively in the word unit. CONSTITUTION:This device is equipped with a character segmenting part 6 to perform the character recognition reading the image of a document 5, a character recognition part 7, a dictionary collating part 8 to perform the correcting work of a recognized character, a word bracketing part 9, the word dictionary 10, a word bracketing information storage part 11, a candidate word storage part 12, a character string storage part 13, a correction processing part 14, and a word designation part 15. In such constitution, the correction of an already recognized character string is performed in word unit comprehensively. Therefore, a part for which the correction of the already recognized character string is required is bracketed in word unit. Each word is collated with the word dictionary, and a candidate word is displayed by listing on a display part 16. A corresponding part can be corrected comprehensively in word unit by selecting and designating a correct candidate word from the candidate words by an operator.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a character recognition error correction method and apparatus for optically reading and recognizing characters written on a form and using them as various data.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art When processing character data on a computer, a character recognition process for optically reading and recognizing characters written on a document or a form for facilitating the input and automatically capturing the data as data The device is widely adopted. FIG. 2 shows an external view of a conventional general character recognition device. This device comprises a display 1, a keyboard 2, an image reader 3, a mouse 4 and the like. The image reader 3 is for optically reading a form, a document, or the like, and importing them into the device as image data. A certain character recognition process is performed inside the device and the result is displayed on the display 1. The operator compares the recognition result with the read character and corrects any recognition error. The keyboard 2 and mouse 4 are used for the correction.

FIG. 3 shows an explanatory view of a conventional character recognition error correction method. Conventionally, a process of verifying a recognized character by an operator and making a necessary correction has been performed by the procedure shown in this figure. For example, as shown in this figure, the document has "t
It is assumed that it was described as "acute". Device is Figure 2
This image is read using the image reader 3 shown in FIG. The recognition result is displayed on the display. Here, for example, due to an error in character recognition or post-processing, "hotpl
If it is erroneously recognized as "ate", the operator requests the correction of the first character using the keyboard 2 and the mouse 4 shown in FIG. At this time, as shown in FIG. 3, there are three recognition candidate characters for the first character, that is, “n”, “h”, and “t”.
It is assumed that the three characters of are listed. These listed characters are also displayed on the display 1 shown in FIG. The operator uses the mouse 4 or the like to select and instruct the valid character "t" from these candidate characters. by this,
The recognition result is fixed such that the first character is t. The correction is completed by performing the same operation on the second, third, and fourth characters. Such a technique is introduced, for example, in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 58-125183.

[0004]

By the way, in the case of performing the character recognition processing as described above, for the characters that are erroneously recognized, the correction work is performed for each character in the manner described above. Therefore, when there are many correction objects, the correction work becomes complicated and takes a long time.
The present invention has been made in view of the above points, and it is an object of the present invention to provide a character recognition error correction method and apparatus that can perform a character recognition error correction operation more easily and quickly.

[0005]

According to a first aspect of the present invention, an image is read, character recognition is performed, and a word dictionary prepared in advance for each word is collated to select one word from a plurality of obtained candidate words. , In the post-processed character string that corrects the recognition result and becomes the read result, for any word specified by the operator, the candidate words listed in the post-process are enumerated and displayed, and displayed. The present invention relates to a character recognition error correction method characterized by selecting and designating a valid candidate word from candidate words and correcting the read result.

According to a second aspect of the present invention, an image consisting of a character pattern string is read, recognition is performed for each character pattern, the obtained recognition result is divided into word units, and the divided words are prepared in advance. A character recognition unit that selects one word from the obtained plurality of candidate words by collating with a dictionary, corrects the recognition result, and obtains an encoded character string, and a character recognition unit that is obtained in the process of the post-processing. A display unit that displays the selected candidate words, and a word designating unit that selects and designates a valid candidate word from the one or more candidate words displayed on the display unit, and according to the designation by the word designating unit, The present invention relates to a character recognition error correction device comprising a correction processing unit that replaces the words that form the character string obtained by the character recognition unit with designated candidate words.

[0007]

This device collectively corrects character recognition errors in word units instead of character units. For this purpose, the already recognized portion of the character string that needs to be corrected is divided into word units. Each word is collated with the word dictionary, and candidate words are listed and displayed on the display unit. If the operator selects and designates a valid candidate word from the candidate words, the corresponding portion is collectively corrected word by word, which enables a quicker work than the correction by character.

[0008]

The present invention will be described in detail below with reference to the embodiments shown in the drawings. FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing an embodiment of a character recognition processing device of the present invention. This apparatus includes a character cutout unit 6 for reading an image of a document 5 and performing character recognition, a character recognition unit 7, a dictionary collation unit 8 for correcting the recognized character, a word dividing unit 9, and a word A dictionary 10, a word segmentation information storage unit 11, a candidate word storage unit 12, a character string storage unit 13, a correction processing unit 14, and a word designation unit 15 are provided. The character recognition content is displayed on the display unit 16. A display screen 17 as shown in the figure is displayed on the display unit 16.

The document 5 is composed of, for example, a form, and the image composed of the character pattern string written in the document 5 is optically read. The character slicing unit 6 is composed of a well-known circuit for slicing the read image in character units and outputting the image to the character recognizing unit 7.
The character recognition unit 7 is a circuit for analyzing an image read using a dictionary having a certain pattern and outputting encoded character data. These parts have the same structure as the conventional character recognition processing device.

A dictionary collation unit 8 is provided on the output side of the character recognition unit 7, and in the apparatus of the present invention, the dictionary collation unit 8 converts one word segmented by the word segmentation unit 9 into a word dictionary. This is a part where one or more candidate words having a high degree of matching are extracted by collating with 10. As many words as necessary to be read are stored in the word dictionary 10, and the dictionary matching unit 8 extracts from the word dictionary 10 words that are morphologically similar to the read words actually recognized by the character recognition unit 7. Take action. The word segmentation information storage unit 11 is a unit that stores information regarding the boundaries of the character strings segmented by the word segmentation unit 9. The word segmentation unit 9 and the dictionary matching unit 8 have the same configuration as that installed in the conventional apparatus as the unit for automatically correcting the character recognition result in units of words together with the character recognition unit 7. . In the present invention, in the conventional apparatus, when there is an error in the result of such post-processing of character recognition being automatically performed, it is attempted to manually correct it in word units.

The candidate word storage unit 12 is newly provided in the present invention, and is a unit that stores the candidate words that the dictionary collation unit 8 has extracted and listed during the above post-processing as they are. The correction processing unit 14 is also newly provided in the present invention. In addition to displaying the candidate word stored in the candidate word storage unit 12 on the display unit 16, one of these candidate words is displayed by the word designating unit 15. When the candidate word is selected and designated, the selected candidate word is replaced with the word recognized by the post-processing to correct the character string. The character string obtained as a result of the correction is stored in the character string storage unit 13. The character string stored in the character string storage unit 13 is also displayed on the display unit 16 as necessary.
Is displayed in. The word designating unit 15 is composed of a keyboard, a mouse and the like, and is used for designating a word to be corrected from a character string read and recognized. It is also used for the work of selecting and designating one valid candidate word from the candidate words.

On the display screen 17 displayed on the display unit 16, the candidate words 19 stored in the candidate word storage unit 12 as described above are displayed. Here, one or more candidate words are listed. The word designation unit 15 is used to move the cursor 20 on the display screen 17 and designate one candidate word out of the candidate words 19. The result designated in this way is used by the correction processing unit 14 to correct the character string stored in the character string storage unit 13.

FIG. 4 is an explanatory view of an embodiment of the method of the present invention. The method of the present invention is carried out by the apparatus as described above, as in the example shown in this figure. First, a character pattern string 21 is obtained by reading an image from a document. This is recognized by the character cutout unit 6 and the character recognition unit 7 shown in FIG. The dictionary collation unit 8 collates the thus obtained character recognition result with the word dictionary 10 for each word segmented by the word segmentation unit 9 that automatically segments the word, and the candidate word 19 is obtained. Here, the “post-processing” in which any one of the candidate words is used as the recognition result is conventionally automatically executed, for example, “hotpl” obtained as the first-ranked candidate.
"ate" is set as the recognition result. When this post-processing ends, the candidate words have been cleared in the past.

However, in the present invention, “hotplate” obtained as the first-ranked candidate is displayed as the encoded character string 23, and the remaining candidate words are stored in the candidate word storage unit 12. The operator compares the character pattern string 21 that is the original image with the encoded character string 23 displayed on the display unit 16 (FIG. 1), and the word designation unit 15 (FIG. 1) is used to correct the error. When the word is designated, the device of the present invention retrieves and lists the candidate words 19 for the designated word from the candidate word storage unit 12.
In this example, two candidate words are listed. The operator selects a candidate word that matches the actual character pattern string from these two candidate words, in this example, "tabulate".
Select and specify this. As a result, a correct recognition result can be obtained.

FIG. 5 shows a specific flowchart of the character recognition error correction method of the present invention. The method of the present invention is specifically carried out as shown in the procedure of this figure. In step S1, the recognition result of the character recognition unit 7 shown in FIG. 1 is first displayed on the display unit 16. Next, in step S2, the operator designates a word to be corrected using the word designating unit 15 or a mouse not shown.

Next, in step S3, the candidate words already stored in the candidate word storage unit 12 in the above post-processing are extracted and listed. When the dictionary matching is already performed in the above post-processing and is stored in the candidate word storage unit, the candidate words of the word are extracted and listed from there. .
The correction processing unit 14 displays this candidate word on the display unit 16 and provides the operator with a screen having the content as shown in the display screen 17 of FIG. The operator uses the word designating unit 15 to select and instruct a valid candidate word from the candidate words (step S4). When such a designation is made, the correction processing unit 14 replaces the corresponding word with the candidate word and corrects the character string in step S5. This character string is stored in the character string storage unit 13.

Next, in step S6, it is determined whether or not all the corrections of the read character string have been completed. If the operator displays the character string stored in the character string storage unit 13 on the display unit 16 and confirms the content, and determines that there is no character to be corrected, the process ends. When it is determined that there is a character to be corrected in another word, the process returns to step S1 and the operations of steps S1 to S6 shown in FIG. 5 are repeated. By the above process,
Even when a large number of recognition errors occur in the recognized character string, the recognition result can be collectively corrected on a word-by-word basis instead of correcting each character. Therefore,
For example, in the example shown in FIG. 4, a reading error of four characters can be corrected by one operation.

The present invention is not limited to the above embodiments. Each block of the apparatus shown in FIG. 1 is configured by a storage device, a processor, or various devices, and its specific configuration can be freely selected. Further, the display method of the display screen, the procedure of the correction work, etc. may be freely changed within the scope of the above-mentioned purpose.

[0019]

According to the character recognition error correction method and apparatus of the present invention described above, the error of the character string recognized by the image reading is divided into word units instead of character units, and collated with the word dictionary. Since the correction is performed collectively in units, the correction work can be performed quickly and efficiently as compared with the case where correction is performed in character units.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing an embodiment of a character recognition processing device of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is an external view of a general character recognition device.

FIG. 3 is an explanatory diagram of a conventional character recognition error correction method.

FIG. 4 is an explanatory view of an embodiment of the method of the present invention.

FIG. 5 is a flowchart of a character recognition error correction method of the present invention.

[Explanation of symbols]

 5 documents 7 character recognition unit 8 dictionary matching unit 9 word segmentation unit 10 word dictionary 14 correction processing unit 15 word designation unit 16 display unit 17 display screen

Claims (2)

[Claims] 1. A post-process for recognizing a character by reading an image, performing collation with a word dictionary prepared in advance on a word-by-word basis, selecting one word from a plurality of obtained candidate words, and correcting the recognition result to obtain a read result. For any word specified by the operator in the character string in which is performed, the candidate words listed in the post-processing are listed and displayed, and a valid candidate word is selected and specified from the displayed candidate words. Then, the character recognition error correction method is characterized in that the read result is corrected. 2. An image consisting of a character pattern string is read, recognition is performed for each character pattern, the obtained recognition result is divided into word units, and the divided words are collated with a word dictionary prepared in advance, A character recognition unit that selects one word from the obtained plurality of candidate words, performs post-processing to correct the recognition result, obtains an encoded character string, and displays the candidate words obtained in the post-processing process And a display unit for displaying one or more candidate words displayed on the display unit,
A word designating unit that selects and designates a valid candidate word, and a correction processing unit that replaces the words constituting the character string obtained by the character recognition unit with the designated candidate word according to the designation by the word designating unit. A character recognition error correction device characterized by being provided.