JPH06290308A - Character recognizing device - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To provide a character recognizing device which can improve its operability by facilitating a selecting job to select a correct word among those candidate words shown at a display part. CONSTITUTION:A post-processing part 16 performs the knowledge processing based on the recognizing result of a recognizing part 12 and also outputs the candidate words. A display part 20 changes its display modes between a case where the words of the word information stored from the first in a knowledge dictionary are shown as the candidate words and a case where the words of the word information registered in a word registering part 14 are shown as the candidate words for an operator who is selecting a correct word among those candidate ones. Thus, the operator can easily distinguish the words of the word information stored in the knowledge dictionary from the words of the word information registered by users for selection of the candidate words. In such a constitution, the operator can instantaneously find out and corrects a candidate word having the high possibility of being a correct word and can confirm this candidate word.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a character recognizing device which is capable of processing a form or a document quickly and accurately and which has good operability.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, a knowledge dictionary has been used to improve the recognition rate of handwritten characters. The information held by the knowledge dictionary includes the information of the words to be recognized, context information,
And other information. The user of the character recognition device can also newly register these pieces of information. Less than,
As a conventional character recognition technique using the word information of the knowledge dictionary, for example, a technique disclosed in Document 1: Showa 57 1982, General Conference of the Institute of Electronics and Communication, Volume 5 to 326, will be described.

First, a predetermined area of a form or a document is optically scanned and an optical signal from the paper surface is photoelectrically converted to obtain image data of the form or the document. Then, a pattern of characters to be recognized is cut out from the image data. A character to be recognized is recognized based on the cut-out character pattern, and one or a plurality of candidate characters are obtained as a recognition result. Then, for a character for one unit of knowledge processing, a character string is created by combining one or more candidate characters obtained for each character, and the candidate rank or similarity assigned to each candidate character of the character string is used. Then, the similarity between the character string and the word of the word information is calculated, and the character string having the maximum similarity is selected. Then, the word of the word information corresponding to this character string is displayed. However, when the similarity of the character string is less than or equal to a predetermined threshold value, a character string formed by combining the candidate characters having the first candidate rank is displayed.

When correcting the knowledge processing result, a word group of word information whose similarity to the character string exceeds a predetermined threshold value is displayed as a candidate word, and the correct word is included in it. For example, select it to make the correction.

[0005]

In the above character recognition technique, when displaying a candidate word, (1) a word of word information existing from the beginning is output as a candidate word;
(2) A word of the word information registered by the user may be output as a candidate word, but the user registers word information that is highly necessary according to the purpose (2)
The word in case (1) is more likely to be the correct answer than the word in case (1). Nevertheless, the display of the words in the cases (1) and (2) was the same. Therefore, the operator can not find a word that is likely to be the correct answer by simply glancing at the display of candidate words, so it is necessary to carefully observe all the displayed words and select the correct answer word, Therefore, it takes a lot of time for editing work such as correction and confirmation, and there is a problem that the number of forms or documents that can be processed per unit time becomes small.

An object of the present invention is to solve the above-mentioned conventional problems, and to provide a character recognition apparatus with improved operability by making it easier to perform a work of selecting a correct answer word from displayed candidate words as compared with the conventional art. To do.

[0007]

In order to solve the above problems, the present invention provides a recognition unit for outputting a recognition result of a character pattern cut out from image data of a quantized form or document, and a word dictionary for word information. A word registration unit for registering to, a post-processing unit that outputs a knowledge processing result and a candidate word based on the recognition result using the knowledge dictionary, a result editing unit that edits the post-processing result, and the candidate word In a character recognition device comprising a display unit for displaying, and an input unit for inputting a correct word, in the display unit, when the candidate word is a word of word information that originally existed in the knowledge dictionary, It is characterized in that the display method of the word is changed depending on whether the word is the word of the word information registered by the word registration unit.

[0008]

According to the present invention, when the correct answer is selected from the candidate words, the display on the display unit is performed when the word of the word information existing from the beginning in the knowledge dictionary is output as the candidate word and when it is registered by the word registration unit. When the word of the selected word information is output as a candidate word, the word of the word information existing in the knowledge dictionary from the beginning in the operation of selecting the candidate word and the word of the word information registered by the user are changed. Since they can be easily identified, the operator can instantly find a candidate word with a high possibility of being correct and correct or confirm it. Therefore, the above problem is solved.

[0009]

Embodiments of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings. It should be noted that the drawings are only schematically shown to the extent that the present invention can be understood.
The arrangement position, dimensions, input / output signals, and connection relationship are not limited to the illustrated example.

FIG. 1 is a functional block diagram for explaining one embodiment of the present invention. Character recognition device 10 of this embodiment
Is a recognition unit 12 that cuts out character patterns from image data of a quantized form or document and outputs a recognition result of the cut-out character patterns, and word registration that registers word information desired by a user of the character recognition device. Unit 14, post-processing unit 16 for outputting knowledge processing result of recognition result and candidate word based on knowledge dictionary, result editing unit 18 for correcting and confirming knowledge processing result, display for displaying knowledge processing result and candidate word A unit 20 and an input unit 22 for inputting a correct word are provided, and these word registration unit 14, result editing unit 18, and display unit 2 are further provided.
0, and a control unit 24 for controlling the operation of the input unit 22. Further, in FIG. 1, reference numeral 26 denotes a photoelectric conversion unit that outputs quantized image data of a form or a document.
Is an image memory for storing the image data from the photoelectric conversion unit 26.

FIG. 2 is a diagram showing an example of a form. In FIG. 2, 30 is an example of a form in which an address is written, and 32 is an entry frame for designating a character writing area.

FIG. 3 is a diagram showing an example of selection of candidate words. In FIG. 3, 34 is a display screen, 36 is a form, 38 is a character string area to be corrected, 40 is a cursor position, 42 is a candidate word display frame, Reference numeral 44 indicates a user registration word whose display method is changed.

Hereinafter, this embodiment will be described in more detail with reference to FIGS. 1, 2, and 3. The photoelectric conversion unit 26 optically scans a predetermined reading range on a form or a document,
The optical signal L from the form or document is photoelectrically converted to output image data quantized into black and white binary, and the image memory 28 stores this image data.

The recognition unit 12 cuts out a character pattern from the image data in the image memory 28, and extracts various features relating to the character to be recognized from the cut-out character pattern.
Then, the characteristics of the extracted character pattern are compared with the characteristics of the standard character pattern, and the character recognition result and the candidate rank are output.
When one or more candidate characters are obtained as a recognition result for one character, and when there is one candidate character, candidate rank 1 is attached to the candidate character and output, and when there are multiple candidate characters , The candidate rank determined for each candidate character is attached to the candidate character and output.

The word registration unit 14 additionally registers the word information desired by the user of the character recognition device in the knowledge dictionary. Information is added to the word information of the knowledge dictionary so that the word information registered by the word registration unit and the general word information prepared from the beginning can be distinguished. Hereinafter, this information will be referred to as word registration information.

The post-processing unit 16 performs knowledge processing using word information based on the recognition result from the recognition unit 12. Post-processing unit 1
6 is a combination of the candidate characters of each character for one unit of knowledge processing when the recognition result of the character of one unit of knowledge processing (for example, the recognition result of the area where the prefecture name is described in the form 30 shown in FIG. 2) is input. The character string is collated with the word of the word information, and it is checked whether or not the word corresponding to the character string of the candidate characters exists in the word information. Then, when the character string A that matches the word of the word information is detected from the character strings formed by combining, the evaluation value J of the character string A is calculated. Where S
The evaluation value J can be expressed as, for example, J = S ÷ N, where is the sum of the candidate ranks given to each candidate character of the character string and N is the total number of characters that make up the character string. .

Whether or not the word and the character string A match is determined by, for example, whether or not all the character codes of the characters at the corresponding positions of the word and the character string A match. Then, the character string A having the smallest evaluation value J is selected from the character strings A as the knowledge processing result when all the character strings formed for one unit of knowledge processing have been matched with the word information. Also, word information that is less than or equal to a predetermined evaluation value is selected as a candidate word of the character string A. This character string A is sent to the result editing section 18 together with the candidate word.

If only one character string A is detected when all the character strings of the knowledge processing unit text are matched with the words of the word information, the character string A is selected as the knowledge processing result and selected. The resulting character string A is sent to the result editing unit 18.

If no character string A is detected when all the character strings for one unit of knowledge processing have been matched with the words of the word information, the candidate rank of each character for one unit of knowledge processing is The character string A formed by combining the first-ranked candidate characters is selected as the knowledge processing result, and the selected character string A is sent to the result editing unit 18.

When the candidate word of the character string A sent from the post-processing unit 16 exists, the result editing unit 18 sends the character string A and the candidate word to the control unit 24. And the control unit 24
Sends a display instruction of the candidate word according to the character string A, the candidate word, and the word registration information to the display unit 20. At this time, if the candidate word is not the word of the word information registered in the word registration unit, the instruction to display in the first color is given, and if it is the word of the word information registered in the word registration unit, the first color is displayed. Sends an instruction to display in a second color different from. Further, the display unit 20 displays the character string A and the candidate word by the method designated by the display instruction (for example, the display screen 34 shown in FIG. 3). Here, the operator determines whether or not the character string A in the display screen is incorrect, and if it is incorrect, the operator selects the correct answer word from the candidate words. If the correct word does not exist in the candidate words, enter the correct word using a keyboard or the like.

If the candidate word of the character string A does not exist, the result editing unit 18 sends the character string A to the display unit 20 via the control unit 24, and the display unit 20 displays this character string A. Here, the operator determines whether or not the character string A on the display screen is incorrect, and if it is incorrect, the correct word is input by a keyboard or the like. Then, the result editing unit 18 receives the correct word described above via the input unit 22 and the control unit 24 and exchanges it for an incorrect character string. In addition, when the operator determines that the character string A displayed on the display unit 20 is the correct answer, the result editing unit 18 outputs the character string A as it is.

The present invention is not limited to the above-mentioned embodiments, and therefore, the configuration, operation, processing content, input / output signal and numerical condition of each component may be arbitrarily changed. For example, in the above-mentioned embodiment, the user additionally registered the word information in the general knowledge dictionary in the word registration section, but another knowledge dictionary dedicated to the user is prepared and the necessary word information is registered therein. Good.

Further, in the above-described embodiment, the evaluation value J is a value obtained by dividing the sum S of the candidate ranks given to the respective candidate characters of the character string by the total number N of the characters constituting the character string.
Scores corresponding to each candidate rank instead of the sum S of candidate ranks (for example, 100 points for candidate rank 1 and 90 points for candidate rank 2 are associated with lower scores as the candidate rank decreases). The sum of (corresponding) may be used. Alternatively, instead of the sum S of the candidate ranks, the sum of the appearance frequencies of the candidate characters in the character string (in this case, the appearance frequency is held in advance by the recognition unit) may be used.
Alternatively, instead of the sum S of the candidate ranks, the similarity between the candidate character and the character pattern corresponding to the candidate character may be obtained and the sum of the similarities of the candidate characters in the character string may be used. Alternatively, instead of the sum S of the candidate characters, the distance between the dictionary matrix of the candidate characters and the feature amount of the character pattern corresponding to the candidate character is obtained, and the sum of the distances of the candidate characters of the character string is used. Good. Alternatively, instead of the sum S of the candidate ranks, the sum of the appearance frequencies of the candidate characters in the character string and the sum of the candidate ranks may be used.

In addition to the above-described display method of the display unit, the display may be changed by using one or more of different colors, different brightness, blinking, and underlining, for example.

Further, the post-processing section may perform knowledge processing using word information as described below in addition to the above. In order to check whether the word corresponding to the character string consisting of the candidate characters exists in the word information, the character string of the knowledge processing one unit sentence is compared with the word of the word information, and the similarity between these character strings and words is compared. Degree or inconsistency. As a word corresponding to the character string, for example, a word whose similarity to the character string exceeds a predetermined threshold value or a word whose dissimilarity to the character string does not exceed a predetermined threshold value is detected. Then, (1) when a character string whose similarity exceeds a predetermined threshold value or a character string whose degree of disagreement does not exceed a predetermined threshold value is detected,
The maximum similarity or the minimum dissimilarity is detected from the detected character strings, and the word of the word information corresponding to the character string having the maximum similarity or the minimum disagreement is used as the knowledge processing result,
Also, the maximum similarity or the minimum dissimilarity is output as the evaluation value of the knowledge processing. (2) Knowledge processing One character string whose similarity exceeds a predetermined threshold value or whose dissimilarity degree does not exceed a predetermined threshold value even if all the character strings for one unit of knowledge processing have been matched with the words of the word information.
If no individual can be detected, the knowledge processing result of the character string of the combination of the candidate characters having the first candidate rank is evaluated, and the predetermined lower limit value of the similarity or the predetermined upper limit value of the dissimilarity is evaluated. Output as a value. The lower limit value of the similarity and the upper limit value of the dissimilarity indicate that the word corresponding to the character string made up of the candidate characters does not exist in the word information.

Furthermore, in the above-mentioned embodiment, an example of knowledge processing using word information has been described, but the present invention may be applied to a character recognition device that performs knowledge processing using context information and other knowledge information.

[0027]

As described above, according to the present invention, when the correct answer is selected from the candidate words, the display on the display unit is the same as when the word of the word information existing from the beginning in the knowledge dictionary is output as the candidate word. , The word of the word information registered in the word registration unit changes when it is output as a candidate word, and the word of the word information existing in the knowledge dictionary from the beginning in the work of selecting the candidate word and the user registered it. Since it can be easily distinguished from the word of the word information, the operator can instantly find a candidate word having a high possibility of correct answer and perform correction, confirmation and the like. As a result, the time required to correct and confirm the form or document is shortened. Therefore, it is possible to provide a character recognizing device which is capable of processing a form or a document at high speed and with good operability.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a functional block diagram showing a configuration of an exemplary embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a diagram showing an example of a form.

FIG. 3 is a diagram showing an example of candidate word selection.

[Explanation of symbols]

 10 character recognition device 12 recognition unit 14 word registration unit 16 post-processing unit 18 result editing unit 20 display unit 22 input unit 24 control unit 26 photoelectric conversion unit 28 image memory

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. A recognition unit for outputting a recognition result of a character pattern cut out from image data of a quantized form or document, a word registration unit for registering word information in a knowledge dictionary, and the knowledge dictionary. A post-processing unit that outputs a knowledge processing result and a candidate word based on the recognition result, a result editing unit that edits the post-processing result, a display unit that displays the candidate word, and an input unit that inputs a correct word. In a character recognition device comprising, the display unit, when the candidate word is a word of the word information that existed in the knowledge dictionary from the beginning, and is a word of the word information registered in the word registration unit A character recognition device characterized in that the display method of the word is changed.