JPH0934903A - File retrieval device - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a file retrieval device capable of easily storing information written in documents or the like and easily and surely performing retrieval. SOLUTION: This device is provided with an image input means 1 for inputting characters, symbols and graphics as image data, a storage means 2 for storing the image data read by the image input means 1 as they are as the image data, a display means 3 for displaying the image data in the form of a file with an index for displaying one piece of the image data on one page, a range specifying means 4 for specifying the prescribed part of the image data displayed by the display means 3 as a range, a character recognition means 5 for converting the array of picture elements within the range specified by the range specifying means 4 to character data and an editing means 7 for editing the character data converted by the character recognition means 5 as the character data.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a file search apparatus for importing information described in a document or the like into a computer as computer data and organizing and utilizing the information by utilizing the function of the computer.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art With the recent development of computer technology,
Information has been developed into a computer by taking information described in a document or the like into a computer as data of the computer to reduce the storage place of the document and the like and effectively utilizing the information.

As a result of the above technical development, there has already been proposed a file search apparatus which incorporates an image scanner and inputs and stores information described in a document or the like as image data. This conventional file search device scans a document with an image scanner, and sets image data obtained by one scan as one image data, and searches for each image data or for each predetermined number of image data groups. The user inputs a keyword, and each image data is stored together with the keyword for searching.

According to this conventional file searching apparatus, when searching for image data of a predetermined document, the user inputs a keyword to be searched, and the same or part as the keyword to be searched by the searching means provided in the file searching apparatus. By searching for image data having the same search keyword, desired image data is searched for.

Searching for partially identical search keywords means, for example, that the search keyword entered as "XX Co., Ltd." when the image data is stored is also searched for by partially identical "XX" keywords. It was like being done.

[0006] In connection with this, many techniques for retrieving similar keywords have been proposed. For example, "AB
If the keyword "C Co., Ltd." is entered, "BC Co., Ltd.", "ABC Co., Ltd."
A technique has been proposed in which similar search keywords are searched for in consideration of a general expression method such as "ABC".

Further, as an improved device of the file search device, a file search device incorporating a character recognition device has been proposed for the purpose of compressing the amount of data to be stored.

A file search device incorporating this character recognition device automatically discriminates a text part of a document from a part such as a photograph or a drawing when fetching information described in a document or the like, and the character recognition device for the text part. The image data is converted into character data, the part such as a photograph and a drawing is captured as image data, and the text part is converted into character data so that information such as a document can be stored with a small storage capacity. Also in this file search device, when the image data and the character data are stored, a search keyword for future search is input.

[0009]

However, in the above-mentioned conventional file search apparatus, a search keyword must be input when storing image data or the like. However, this search keyword input operation is manually performed. This takes time, which hinders the rapid storage of information.

Although it is possible to search for partially identical search keywords or expressions that are similar to each other, the user is most likely to search each image data while considering the possibility of keywords in future searches. Since it was necessary to input an appropriate search keyword, the burden on the user when storing information was large. Also, due to skillful setting of keywords, search became difficult or easy.

Further, even if the problem of skillful setting of the keyword is eliminated, the conventional file search device cannot meet the demand for searching with an unexpected keyword. Therefore, it is difficult to flexibly utilize the information already stored.

On the other hand, in the conventional file retrieval apparatus which converts and stores the partial character data, the result of conversion by the character recognition apparatus must be confirmed or corrected by the user when capturing information. It took time and effort to store the information to check and correct this character recognition. In addition, if information is stored with incorrect character recognition, the original information may be lost.

From the above-mentioned various points, the conventional file search apparatus has a problem that it is not easy to store information and desired information cannot be searched accurately and quickly.

Therefore, an object of the present invention is to provide a file search device that can easily store information described in documents and the like and that can be searched easily and reliably.

[0015]

In order to solve the above problems, a file search apparatus according to claim 1 of the present invention comprises an image input means for inputting characters, symbols and figures as image data, and the image input means. Storage means for storing the read image data as image data, display means for displaying the image data in the form of a file with a headline for displaying one image data per page, and display means for displaying the image data. Range specifying means for specifying a predetermined portion of the image data as a range, character recognizing means for converting an array of pixels within the range specified by the range specifying means into character data, and characters converted by the character recognizing means. And an editing means for editing the data as character data. .

The file search device according to claim 2 of the present application is
The file search device according to claim 1, further comprising a similar character string generation unit that generates a character string similar to a predetermined character string, allowing a user to input a character string to be searched, and input the character string and The similar character string generated by the similar character string generation means with respect to the input character string is used as a search target, and the search is performed from the character data subjected to range specification and character conversion by the range specification means and the character recognition means. It is characterized in that a search means for searching a target character string is provided.

The file search device according to claim 3 of the present application is
3. The file search device according to claim 2, wherein the similar character string generator assigns a rank to a character string similar to a predetermined character string according to the probability of similarity, and the search means is a character input by the user. A character string is searched for in a candidate rank by using the string as a first candidate, the similar character string generated by the similar character string generation unit as a ranked candidate.

A file search device according to claim 4 of the present application is
The file search device according to claim 2, wherein the similar character string generation unit generates a similar character string by referring to a corresponding file of a predetermined character and a character similar thereto.

The file search device according to claim 5 of the present application is
3. The file search device according to claim 2, wherein the similar character string generation unit searches for a character having a shape similar to the input character and generates a similar character string according to a shape similarity rule. is there.

The file search device according to claim 6 of the present application is
3. The file search device according to claim 2, wherein the similar character string generation unit searches for a character similar to the input character and generates a similar character string according to a character transformation rule by printing / reading. Is.

The file search device according to claim 7 of the present application is
2. The file search device according to claim 1, wherein an image of a range designated by the range designating means is converted into a character string by the character recognizing means, and the converted character string is used as a search target, the range designating means and the character recognizing means It is characterized by comprising a searching means for searching the character string to be searched from the character data which has been subjected to range specification and character conversion.

A file search device according to claim 8 of the present application is
8. The file search device according to claim 1, wherein the range designating unit designates a range of one image data, thereby designating the same range of all image data. is there.

[0023]

BEST MODE FOR CARRYING OUT THE INVENTION Embodiments of the present invention will be described below with reference to the accompanying drawings. FIG. 1 shows the configuration of a file search device according to an embodiment of the present invention and the flow of processing thereof.

The file search device of this embodiment comprises an image input means 1, a storage means 2, a display means 3, a range designation means 4, a character recognition means 5, a search means 6, an editing means 7, have. The image input means 1 can have various configurations, and if the information described in a document or the like can be input as image data, the image scanner 1
a, a cable 1b connected to another computer or a network, or a multifunction machine of a fax machine and a copy machine (not shown).

The display means 3 of this embodiment is independent of the display device 8 such as a monitor, and will be described below as a control means for sending image data to the display device 8 to perform display control. The means may include a display device.

Similarly, the range designating means 4 of the present embodiment.
The searching means 6 and the editing means 7 are independent of the input device 9 such as a keyboard and a mouse, and specify a range,
The control means for searching and editing will be described below, but each may include input means such as a keyboard.

Next, the flow of processing of the file search device having the above configuration will be described below. The file search device according to the present embodiment takes in all the information described in a document or the like as image data. Specifically, a document or the like is placed on the scanning surface of the image scanner 1a or the like, and all the characters, figures, photographs, etc. written on the document or the like by the optical reading of the image scanner 1a are image data (the pixel arrangement is recorded. The data is stored in the image data file 10 of the storage means 2. In this case, the image data acquired by one scanning of the image scanner 1a is stored as one image data. When not using the image scanner 1a, information already converted into image data may be input to the image data file 10 via the cable 1b.

It should be noted here that, according to the file search apparatus of this embodiment, it is not necessary to input a search keyword for searching image data in the future when information is fetched. Can be mentioned. This allows the user to mechanically store large amounts of documents quickly. The search for the information stored in this way will be described later.

The display means 3 is the image data file 1
The image data is taken out from 0 and displayed on the display device 8. As shown in FIG. 2, the display means 3 displays one image data as one page and displays it in a file format with a heading according to a predetermined classification. In the display of this file format, a desired image data portion can be quickly opened by clicking a headline with a mouse or the like.

Also, preferably, the display means 3 is "high-speed page turning", "enlargement / reduction / rotation / browsing",
Provide various functions such as "marking" and "comment".

Next, a method for retrieving predetermined information, that is, predetermined image data will be described below. In the search by the file search device according to the present embodiment, the range specifying means 4 first specifies the searched part of the image data. In reality, while the user is looking at the display device 8,
Using an input means such as a mouse, the image data is displayed as shown in FIG.
The frame 11 of the search range as shown in is designated. This is because in a typical document such as a form, the title is written at a predetermined position, and if the title contains a keyword to be searched, only that part is surrounded by the search range frame 11. If so, it is possible to efficiently perform a search with a small search amount.

The part (position) where the desired keyword is determined
If not described in (1), if the range specifying means 4 surrounds the entire image data with the frame 11 of the search range, it is possible to perform a search for all parts of each image data.

The range specifying means 4 according to the present embodiment
Can specify the same range of all image data by specifying the range of one image data. By using this function, in the case of the above-mentioned form, by enclosing the title part of one form with the frame 11 of the search range, the title parts of all the forms can be searched. This function is particularly effective when searching the image data file 10 that stores only the image data of a standard document. In this way, the designated search range is stored in the range designation file 12 of the storage means 2.

Next, the character recognizing means 5 converts the array of pixels in the area specified by the range specifying means 4 into character data. The character recognition unit 5 refers to the range designation file 12, extracts image data from the image data file 10, and converts the pixel array within the designated search range into character data while referring to the dictionary file 13. The converted character data is stored in the character data file 14. These converted character data form a set of searched character strings.

Next, the search means 6 causes the user to input the character string to be searched, and the input character string and the input character string are resembled from the character string set of the character data file 14. Search for a string.

FIG. 3 shows the flow of retrieval by the retrieval means 6. The search means 6 of the present embodiment is characterized in that not only the input character string but also a character string similar to the input character string is searched. This will be described below by showing a concrete example.

For example, when an image data including a character string “interim settlement” is searched, the character string “interim settlement” is erroneously recognized by the character recognition means 5 and stored in the character data file 14. There is a possibility that For example, "medium" means "cow", "noon",
"Kou" etc., "Ma" to "Q", "Seki", "Gate", etc.
There is a possibility that "decision" will be recognized as "law,""drop,""raise," etc., and "calculation" will be recognized as "kei,""masu," and the like.

Therefore, the character string "interim settlement" may be stored in the character data file 14 as a combination of the above characters. These erroneously recognized character strings are not searched by the character string "interim settlement".

On the other hand, the search means 6 of this apparatus has a similar character string generator 15 for generating a character string similar to the input character string. This similar character string generation unit 15
For example, if the character "medium" is input, "cow", "noon", "instep", etc., which are similar to this, are selected as elements that form a similar character string.

There are three methods for selecting the above-mentioned similar characters. In the first similar character selection method, a corresponding file of a predetermined character and a character similar thereto is prepared in advance, and the similar character is selected by referring to this corresponding file. For example, "medium" means "noon", "cow",
If "Kou" etc. is stored in the corresponding file in advance as misidentified characters and the character "Middle" is entered,
Select characters such as "noon", "cow", and "instep". If the corresponding file can be shared with the character recognition means 5, this file is also shared.

The second similar character selection method is the outline of characters,
Characters that are similar in shape to the input character are selected using the character shape rule that determines the character according to the line density and the like. For example, when the character "medium" is input, "noon", "cow", "instep", etc., which are similar in shape to this, are selected by the rule of shape similarity. If the character recognition rule can be shared with the character recognition means 5, the rule is also shared.

In the third similar character selection method, a character similar to the input character is selected according to the character modification rule which prepared many character modification examples by printing and reading. For example, the character "1" may be mistaken for "i", "l", "(", etc. depending on the printing / reading condition. , “L” and “(” are selected as similar characters.

In this way, when the character string "interim settlement" is input as the character string to be searched, the searching means 6 of the present apparatus, in addition to "interim settlement", the similar "cattle settlement" , “Medium-term settlement”, “Intermediate calculation”, and so on are also search target character strings. These character strings to be searched are collated with the character strings in the character data file 14 one by one, and the same character string is searched.

In this case, the search means 6 preferably has a probability of erroneous recognition of a predetermined character as a probability value and ranks the similar character strings. As a result, the similar character string that is most likely to be misidentified is searched for, and when the result is displayed, some possibility of misidentification is displayed.

As the search result, as shown in FIG. 3, image data n1, n2, n3 ... Containing the corresponding character string are displayed, and the corresponding character string portion is highlighted. The results of these searches are stored in the search data file 16 (see FIG. 1) of the storage means 2.

According to the above search method, only the part of the image data containing the search keyword is character-recognized, and the character string input for the search and the character string input for the search are examined without considering whether the result of the character recognition is correct or not. The image data including the corresponding character string is detected by using the similar character string as a search target. As a result, firstly, the processing amount of character recognition can be reduced, secondly the labor for examining the result of character recognition can be saved, and thirdly, the image data including the character string to be searched can be detected without omission. .

In the above description, the searching means 6 searches for a similar character string that is similar to the entire character string to be searched, but the present invention is not limited to this, and the searching means 6 is for searching. It is also possible to generate a search target or a similar character string for a part of the character string input to.

That is, for example, if the keyword to be searched is "ABC Co., Ltd.", "ABC Co., Ltd." is searched by using only the input characters "AB", "ABC", "A *** company" and "A". You can

Also for the similar character string, if the keyword to be searched is "interim settlement",
Specify "Medium" in "Interim settlement", and the string "Hourly settlement" similar to "Medium" including "Noon", "Cow", "A",
It is possible to search for "Ushima settlement", "Kosama settlement", etc. as similar character strings. As a matter of course, in the above-mentioned character designation, any two or three letters can be replaced with similar characters according to the designation by the user.

Further, according to the file search apparatus, it is possible to search by different methods. This search method is a method of paying attention to a predetermined character string in predetermined image data and searching for image data having the same character string as this character string. The different search methods will be described below.

In this search, a set of character strings to be searched 1
Up to the point where 4 is formed, it is exactly the same as the search for inputting the character string. Next, the character string to be searched is converted into character data by the range designation means 4 and the character recognition means 5. In this case, the character string recognized by the character recognizing means 5 is used as it is as the character string to be searched, including the case where it is erroneously recognized.

For example, when searching for a character string "interim settlement", if "interim settlement" is recognized by the character recognizing means 5 as "cattle settlement", "cattle settlement"
Use the string as it is for the search. This is because even in the set of character strings 14 to be searched, there is a very high probability that the "interim settlement" is mistakenly recognized as "inter-financial settlement" by the same character recognizing means 5. This is because it is possible to find the desired image data. The display and storage of the search result are performed in exactly the same manner as the search for inputting the character string.

The above is the search by the file search device. By the way, this file search device is provided with the character recognition means 5
According to this, the arrangement of a predetermined pixel in the image data is converted into character data, which can be used for editing such as copying in the text of a word processor.

As shown in FIG. 1, the editing means 7 of this device.
While referring to the image data displayed by the display means 3, the range designation means 4 designates a predetermined range, and the character recognition means 5 converts it into character data. This character data is stored in the edit data file 17 and can be used for editing a text of a word processor or the like.
Further, a predetermined range of the image data is cut out by the range designating means 4, and this is directly used as the edit data file 17
It can also be stored in a file and used for incorporation into a text such as a word processor.

As a result, information on various documents stored as image data can be utilized, and new information can be created from conventional information as needed.

[0056]

As is apparent from the above description, the file retrieval apparatus according to the present invention can store the information of various documents in the form of image data as it is by the image input means, and can be used for retrieval when storing the information as in the conventional case. There is no need to add keywords or perform character recognition. Therefore, the information of the document can be mechanically stored, and a large amount of information can be stored quickly.

Further, the file search device according to the present invention is
A range to be searched is designated by the range designating means, and character recognition is performed by the character recognizing means on an array of pixels within the range. The result of character recognition is a character string to be searched without checking / correcting its correctness. On the other hand, a character string input for search by the search means and a character string similar thereto are set as character strings to be searched, and character strings corresponding to these are detected from the searched character strings. As a result, the processing amount of character recognition can be reduced, the labor for inspecting the result of character recognition can be saved, and all the image data including the character string to be searched can be detected without omission.

Further, according to the search in which the character string in the image data is designated and the image data containing the same character string is searched, the character recognition error due to the printing or reading condition is used as it is, and a small amount of processing is performed. It is possible to find the image data to be surely found by the amount.

Further, according to the file searching apparatus, a predetermined portion of the image data is cut out if necessary, and the portion is converted into the character data by the character recognizing means not only as the image data, but also by the editing means. It can be used easily.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a configuration example of a file search device according to the present invention and a processing flow thereof.

FIG. 2 is a diagram showing an example of a screen displayed by a display unit 3 of the file search device according to the present invention.

FIG. 3 is an explanatory diagram showing a search process by a search means 6 of the file search device of the present invention.

[Explanation of symbols]

 1 Image Input Means 1a Image Scanner 1b Cable 2 Storage Means 3 Display Means 4 Range Specifying Means 5 Character Recognition Means 6 Search Means 7 Editing Means 8 Display Devices 9 Input Devices 10 Image Data Files 11 Search Range Frames 12 Range Designating Files 13 Dictionaries File 14 Character data file 15 Similar character string generator 16 Search data file 17 Edit data file

─────────────────────────────────────────────────── ─── Continuation of the front page (51) Int.Cl. ⁶ Identification code Office reference number FI technical display location G06F 15/62 330A

Claims (8)

[Claims] 1. An image input means for inputting characters, symbols, and graphics as image data; a storage means for storing the image data read by the image input means as image data; Display means for displaying one image data on a page in the form of a file with a heading, range designating means for designating a predetermined portion of the image data displayed by the display means as a range, and designation by the range designating means. A file search characterized by having a character recognition means for converting an array of pixels within a range into character data, and an editing means for editing the character data converted by the character recognition means as character data. apparatus. 2. A similar character string generation unit for generating a character string similar to a predetermined character string, allowing a user to input a character string to be searched, the input character string and the input character string. A character string to be searched from the character data range-designated and character-converted by the range designating unit and the character recognizing unit with a similar character string generated by the similar character string generating unit as a search target for a string 2. The file search device according to claim 1, further comprising a search means for searching. 3. The similar character string generator assigns a rank to a character string similar to a predetermined character string according to the probability of similarity, and the searching means first selects the character string input by the user. The file search device according to claim 2, wherein the similar character string generated by the similar character string generation unit is used as a candidate and a character string is searched for in the rank of the candidate as a ranked candidate. 4. The file search device according to claim 2, wherein the similar character string generation unit generates a similar character string by referring to a corresponding file of a predetermined character and a character similar thereto. 5. The similar character string generating unit generates a similar character string by searching a character having a shape similar to that of an input character according to a shape similarity rule. File search device. 6. The similar character string generating unit generates a similar character string by searching a character similar to an input character according to a character transformation rule by printing / reading. File search device. 7. The image in the range designated by the range designating means is converted into a character string by the character recognizing means,
This converted character string is used as a search target, and a search means is provided for searching the character string to be searched from the character data that has been subjected to range specification and character conversion by the range specification means and the character recognition means. The file search device according to claim 1. 8. The range specifying means specifies the same range of all image data by specifying a range of one image data, according to any one of claims 1 to 7. File search device.