JPH08168006A - Facsimile equipment - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE: To provide facsimile equipment, with which the recognition rate of characters is improved and the work efficiency of an operator is improved, suitable for an OCR system. CONSTITUTION: Thresholding processing parts 2a-2c respectively separately perform thresholding processing to image data inputted from an original reading part 1 with mutually different 1st-3rd threshold values, output binary data and store them in memory parts 3a-3c. A control part 7 controls the operation of a data switching part 4 by supplying switching control signal to it, and the respective binary data in the memory parts 3a-3c are time sequentially composited, serially extracted from the data switching part 4 as the data of respective pages and transmitted through a line interface 6 to a line as code data after they are encoded and compressed by an encoding part 5.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a facsimile machine, and more particularly to a facsimile machine used in an optical character reading system which enables remote input.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, a facsimile machine is used as an input means of an optical character reader (OCR), and image data from this remote facsimile machine is transmitted through a line and the receiving side receives the image data. An OCR system for reading is known (for example, Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 4-154273).

FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing an example of a conventional facsimile apparatus used on the transmitting side of this OCR system. As shown in the figure, in the conventional facsimile apparatus, the document reading unit 1 optically reads the document and outputs the electrical image data obtained by the document reading to the binarization processing unit 2.

The binarization processing unit 2 binarizes with a predetermined threshold value and outputs binary data. This binary data is compressed by the encoding unit 5, sent to the line via the line interface unit 6, and sent to the OCR processing side (not shown) of the other party.

[0005]

However, in the case of the OCR system using the facsimile device as the input means, the conventional facsimile device can send only a simple black and white binary image as the communication image data.

On the other hand, in a general OCR system, in the case of binarizing an input image, each judgment result is logically processed by using a plurality of binary data with a plurality of different thresholds for recognition. Is improving the rate. Therefore, the OCR using the above-mentioned conventional facsimile apparatus as the input means
In the case of the system, there is a drawback that the recognition rate is not sufficient.

[0007] The present invention has been made in view of the above points,
O to improve the recognition rate of characters and improve the work efficiency of operators
An object of the present invention is to provide a facsimile device suitable for a CR system.

[0008]

In order to achieve the above object, the present invention differs from an original reading section for reading an original, converting it into image data and outputting the same, and the same image data from the original reading section. A plurality of binarization processing means for separately performing binarization processing with a threshold value and converting the binary data to accumulate, and a plurality of binary data extracted by the binarization processing means are sequentially time-series. , A data synthesizing unit for synthesizing and outputting in series, a coding unit for compressing a plurality of binary data serially output from the data synthesizing unit, and a plurality of compressed data output from the coding unit for serial communication. And a line interface unit for sending to

Further, the data synthesizing means of the present invention receives in parallel the respective binary data read and output from the plurality of memory sections constituting the plurality of binarization processing means as input signals in parallel, and by the switching control signal. A data switching unit that selects and outputs one input signal, and a binary control data that generates a switching control signal and is read out from a plurality of memory units and output as binary data of each page by the data switching unit. It is preferable that the receiving side can judge binary data having different threshold values, respectively.

[0010]

According to the present invention, the image data of the original read by the original reading unit is binarized by a plurality of binarization processing means with different threshold values to be converted into binary data. Since the binary data is synthesized in series by the data synthesizing means and transmitted to the line through the encoding unit and the line interface unit respectively, the receiving side has a plurality of binary values of the same document with different threshold values. The recognition rate can be improved by logically operating the data as in a general OCR system.

[0011]

Next, an embodiment of the present invention will be described. FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing one embodiment of a facsimile apparatus according to the present invention. In this embodiment, a document reading unit 1 that reads a document and outputs image data, and a plurality of image data that are binarized by a preset threshold value and output binary data (3 in this embodiment). Binarization processing units 2a, 2b,
2c, a memory unit 3a that stores the binary data a from the binarization processing unit 2a, a memory unit 3b that stores the binary data b from the binarization processing unit 2b, and a binarization processing unit 2c. Memory unit 3c for accumulating the binary data c of
a data switching unit 4 that selects and outputs one of the binary data read from a, 3b, and 3c, a control unit 7 that controls the data switching unit 4 during communication, and encodes and compresses the binary data. And a line interface unit 6 for transmitting code data to the line.

Next, the operation of this embodiment will be described.
At the time of transmission, the document reading section 1 optically reads the document,
It is converted into image data which is an electric signal and simultaneously output to the binarization processing units 2a, 2b and 2c. The binarization processing unit 2a performs binarization processing on the input image data with a preset first threshold value, outputs the binary data a, and stores it in the memory unit 3a.

The binarization processing section 2b performs binarization processing on the input image data with a preset second threshold value,
The binary data b is output and stored in the memory unit 3b. The binarization processing unit 2c performs binarization processing on the input image data with a preset third threshold value, outputs the binary data c, and stores it in the memory unit 3c. Therefore, the image data of the same document is binarized by the binarization processing units 2a, 2b, and 2c with different threshold values, and stored in the corresponding memory units 3a, 3b, and 3c. To be done.

During the communication operation, the control unit 7 controls the operation by supplying a switching control signal to the data switching unit 4. That is, the control unit 7 causes the data switching unit 4 to first select the binary data a stored in the memory unit 3a as data for one page, and then selects the binary data b stored in the memory unit 3b. Select it as the data for one page of
Finally, the binary data c stored in the memory section 3c is further selected as the data for the next one page. Therefore, the above binary data a, b and c are time-sequentially combined as data of each page from the data switching unit 4 and are taken out in series.

The serial output binary data of the data switching unit 4 is sequentially supplied to the coding unit 5, where it is coded and compressed, and then sent to the line through the line interface unit 6 as coded data. As a result, according to the present embodiment, it is possible to transmit binary data that has been binarized by three different thresholds to the OCR system of the communication partner.

On the receiving side, the binary data transmitted via the above line is received by the receiving section, and the binary data for three pages continuously received by the receiving section, that is, three different thresholds. The binary data of the read image of the same original, which has been binary-processed by the value, is logically operated by the logical operation unit, and then the character recognition unit recognizes the character by pattern matching, for example. The character recognition result data is printed by a printer via an output unit, displayed on a display device, or output to a computer to be stored in a memory unit.

Therefore, in the OCR system receiver of the communication partner, the above character recognition is performed based on the logical operation result of the binary data binarized with three different thresholds.
It is possible to improve the recognition rate as compared with the conventional character recognition performed based on binary data binarized with a single threshold value. Therefore, it is possible to reduce the erroneous recognition correction work by the operator and improve the work efficiency of the operator.

The present invention is not limited to the above embodiment, and for example, the binarization processing unit for binarizing image data and the memory unit for accumulating the binary data output from the binarization processing unit are , And the recognition rate can be improved as the number increases. Further, the transmission order of the binarized data may be any order.

[0019]

As described above, according to the present invention,
The binarization processing means performs binarization processing with different threshold values to convert it into binary data, and the plurality of binary data is serially combined by the data combining means to form an encoding unit and a line interface unit, respectively. By transmitting to the line via the line, the receiving side logically operates a plurality of binary data of the same document with different thresholds in the same manner as a general OCR system, thereby improving the recognition rate. As a result, it is possible to provide a facsimile apparatus that constitutes a favorable facsimile input OCR system with a high recognition rate with few erroneous determinations, and it is possible to improve the work efficiency of the receiving-side operator.

[Brief description of drawings]

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

FIG. 2 is a block diagram of an example of a conventional device.

[Explanation of symbols]

 1 Document Reading Section 2a, 2b, 2c Binarization Processing Section 3a, 3b, 3c Memory Section 4 Data Switching Section 5 Encoding Section 6 Line Interface Section 7 Control Section

Claims (2)

[Claims] 1. A document reading unit for reading a document, converting it into image data and outputting the image data, and binarizing the same image data from the document reading unit with different threshold values respectively. A plurality of binarization processing means for converting and accumulating the value data, and a data synthesizing means for synthesizing the plurality of binary data extracted by the binarization processing means sequentially in time series and outputting in series. An encoding unit that compresses a plurality of binary data serially output from the data synthesizing unit; and a line interface unit that sequentially outputs the plurality of compressed data output from the encoding unit to a line. Characteristic facsimile machine. 2. The plurality of binarization processing units are respectively supplied with output image data of the document reading unit, and perform a binarization process on the output image data with different threshold values. , A plurality of memory units that are provided in a one-to-one correspondence with the plurality of binarization processing units and that store the binary data output from the binarization processing unit. And a data switching unit that receives in parallel each binary data read and output from the memory unit as an input signal, selects one output signal by the switching control signal and outputs the data, and generates the switching control signal, 2. The facsimile apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising a control unit for sequentially selecting each binary data read and output from a plurality of memory units as binary data of each page by the data switching unit. .