JPH11224308A - Device and method for recognizing character - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To flexibly deal with the difference of a document format when performing character recognition concerning a prescribed item in a document through a character recognizing device. SOLUTION: The image inputted in a step S201 is divided into plural areas based on the color information of the background color of that image in a step S202, and color information corresponding to the background color is applied to each area. In a step S203, data attributes are set to the respective areas based on the color information in the respective areas provided in the step S202. This is performed by referring to an item converting table for storing the color information and the item information while pairing them. In a step S204, character recognizing processing is performed according to the data attributes set in the step S203.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a character recognition apparatus, and more particularly to a character recognition apparatus and method for performing character recognition on a document such as a form having a predetermined format.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art In a conventional character recognition apparatus, there is an apparatus which performs character recognition by reading an image surrounded by ruled lines such as a form. In this type of apparatus, the format of a document to be read is limited to one format, and only a specific location (that is, a specific item) of the document is recognized.

In order to correspond to a format having different coordinates of a character area, a method has been proposed in which a ruled line is extracted and a portion surrounded by the ruled line is recognized.

[0004]

However, the technique of performing character recognition at a specific location in a document as described above cannot support a plurality of types of formats, and cannot read an item to be read when an image is read by a scanner or the like. Is required to prevent the position from being shifted to a position other than the predetermined position.

In the technique of extracting a ruled line to specify a character recognition position, when processing a document having a ruled line such as a complicated table, even if the format is known in advance, the inclination, the blur, and the displacement of the position are determined. If there are factors such as differences in size, ruled lines cannot be extracted, or text or the like may be erroneously formed as ruled lines, which makes accurate character recognition difficult.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The present invention has been made in view of the above problems, and has an object to provide a character recognition apparatus and method capable of flexibly coping with a difference in document format when character recognition is performed on a predetermined item in a document. The purpose is to provide.

[0007]

Means for Solving the Problems A character recognition device according to one embodiment of the present invention for achieving the above object has, for example, the following configuration. That is, an area dividing means for dividing an image into a plurality of areas based on color information, a setting means for setting a data attribute to each area based on the color information of each area obtained by the area dividing means, Character recognition means for performing a character recognition process in accordance with the data attribute set by the means.

A character recognition method according to another embodiment of the present invention for achieving the above object includes, for example, the following steps. That is, an area dividing step of dividing an image into a plurality of areas based on color information, a setting step of setting a data attribute to each area based on color information of each area obtained in the area dividing step, A character recognition step of performing a character recognition process according to the data attribute set in the step.

[0009]

Preferred embodiments of the present invention will be described below with reference to the accompanying drawings.

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing the configuration of the character recognition device of the present embodiment. In FIG. 1, reference numeral 101 denotes a scanner which irradiates an image original with light, reads reflected light thereof, and converts the reflected light into an electric signal. A scanner interface circuit for transmitting to a component. Reference numeral 103 denotes a pointing device (mouse in this example) for inputting desired coordinates on a window of the display, and 104 denotes an interface circuit for receiving a signal from the pointing device 103 and transmitting the signal to another device component. It is. A CPU 105 controls the entire apparatus and executes an item identification process and the like.
Reference numeral 6 denotes an RO storing control programs executed by the CPU 105, various processing programs, font data, and the like.
Reference numerals M and 107 denote R used as a work area for document image development processing and item identification processing by the CPU 105.
AM.

Reference numeral 108 denotes a display for displaying an input image or the like, and reference numeral 109 denotes a display interface circuit. The display 108 has a RAM 1
The image stored in the VRAM area which is the predetermined address area 07 is displayed. 110 is an external storage device such as a hard disk in which registered data is stored, and 111 is its interface. And 112
Is a bus connecting each device component. In addition, CPU
Control program executed by the external storage device 110
May be stored in the RAM 107 and loaded into the RAM 107 as needed, and the CPU 105 may execute the program.

Next, the flow of processing by the character recognition device of the present embodiment will be described with reference to the flowchart of FIG. 2, and FIGS. 3, 4, 5, and 6. FIG. 2 is a flowchart illustrating the operation procedure of the character recognition device according to the present embodiment. FIG. 3 is a diagram illustrating a structure example of block area data according to the present embodiment. FIG. 4 is a diagram illustrating an example of an item conversion table in the item conversion database according to the present embodiment. FIG. 5 is a diagram illustrating an example of a document to be read by the character recognition device of the present embodiment. FIG. 6 is a diagram illustrating an example of another document.

First, in step S201, a document (FIG. 5) to be recognized is read by a scanner and converted into n-bit color image data. In step S202, the obtained input image data is subjected to area identification processing, a block area is extracted for each background color, and its color information and layout information are stored as block data. In the present embodiment, as in the example shown in FIG. 3, “color” is used as color information, and “coordinates” and “attributes” are used as layout information.
The “set direction” is stored as block data after the area identification processing.

Next, item information conversion processing (step S20)
According to 3), the color information of each block area is converted into item information according to the item conversion database. In the case of the present embodiment, since the document to be recognized (FIG. 5) is “address book”, the item conversion table for “address book” of the item conversion database is used (FIG. 4). For example, block 50 in FIG.
Since the color information 2 is color D, it is converted to the item “address” by the item conversion table (FIG. 4), and the data “4” is set to the item number of the block data.

In this embodiment, the setting of the recognition order is performed simultaneously by setting the item numbers as the recognition order of the block data. That is, the same value as the item number in the block data is set in the recognition order. Next, in the character recognition process (step S204), the character recognition process in each block area is executed in the order of the set block data recognition order, that is, in the order of the item numbers.

According to the character recognition apparatus of the present embodiment as described above, even if processing is performed on documents such as forms having different formats, if the item information (correspondence between colors and items) is the same, The character recognition processing can be performed as the same type of format.

For example, the documents in FIG. 5 and FIG. 6 have different format shapes, although they have the same format type of “address book”. For this reason, in the conventional character recognition device, it was necessary to treat the character recognition processing as a different format. However, according to the present embodiment, since both are the same “address book”, they can be converted into the same item information by using the item conversion table for “address book” (FIG. 4).

For example, the block 503 in FIG. 5 and the block 602 in FIG. 6 have different coordinates of the layout information, but both have color information of “color B”. Therefore, the item “name” is obtained from the item conversion database (FIG. 4). And the data having the item number “2” is set in the block data.
Then, by the character recognition processing (S204), "name"
The character in the block area is recognized as the data of the item of.

Note that the item conversion database stores item conversion tables corresponding to a plurality of types of formats (address book, form, etc.), and the user converts the item conversion table used via an input device such as the mouse 103. It is possible to specify.

As described above, according to the above embodiment,
The input image is divided into multiple areas based on the background color, each item is determined according to the background color of each area, and character recognition is performed for each item, so that character recognition processing of documents such as forms can be performed accurately. Yes, it is possible to perform character recognition processing on documents in formats with different character area coordinates or different shapes such as ruled lines.Improved operability because it is not affected by item deviation when reading images with a scanner etc. This has the effect of reducing the time required for the entire processing.

The present invention can be applied to a system including a plurality of devices (for example, a host computer, an interface device, a reader, a printer, etc.), but can be applied to a single device (for example, a copier, a facsimile) Device).

Another object of the present invention is to provide a storage medium storing a program code of software for realizing the functions of the above-described embodiments to a system or apparatus, and to provide a computer (or CPU) of the system or apparatus.
And MPU) read and execute the program code stored in the storage medium.

In this case, the program code itself read from the storage medium realizes the functions of the above-described embodiment, and the storage medium storing the program code constitutes the present invention.

As a storage medium for supplying the program code, for example, a floppy disk, hard disk, optical disk, magneto-optical disk, CD-ROM, CD
-R, a magnetic tape, a nonvolatile memory card, a ROM, or the like can be used.

When the computer executes the readout program code, not only the functions of the above-described embodiment are realized, but also the OS (Operating System) running on the computer based on the instruction of the program code. ) May perform some or all of the actual processing, and the processing may realize the functions of the above-described embodiments.

Further, after the program code read from the storage medium is written into a memory provided in a function expansion board inserted into the computer or a function expansion unit connected to the computer, based on the instructions of the program code, It goes without saying that the CPU included in the function expansion board or the function expansion unit performs part or all of the actual processing, and the processing realizes the functions of the above-described embodiments.

[0027]

As described above, according to the present invention,
When character recognition is performed on a predetermined item in a document, it is possible to flexibly cope with a difference in document format.

[0028]

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram illustrating a configuration of a character recognition device according to an embodiment.

FIG. 2 is a flowchart illustrating an operation procedure of the character recognition device according to the embodiment.

FIG. 3 is a diagram illustrating a structure example of block area data according to the embodiment;

FIG. 4 is a diagram showing an example of a conversion table in an item conversion database according to the embodiment.

FIG. 5 is a diagram showing an example of a document to be read by the character recognition device of the embodiment.

FIG. 6 is a diagram illustrating an example of another document.

Claims (11)

[Claims] A region dividing unit that divides an image into a plurality of regions based on color information; and a setting unit that sets a data attribute to each region based on color information of each region obtained by the region dividing unit. A character recognition unit that performs a character recognition process according to the data attribute set by the setting unit. 2. The image processing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the setting unit has a conversion table in which color information and data attributes are associated with each other, and refers to the conversion table for a data attribute corresponding to the color information of each area obtained by the area dividing unit. The character recognition device according to claim 1, wherein the character recognition device obtains the information and sets the obtained region. 3. The character according to claim 1, wherein the data attribute includes a processing order, and the character recognizing means executes a character recognition process for each area in accordance with the processing order indicated by the data attribute. Recognition device. 4. The character recognition device according to claim 1, wherein the data attribute represents a data item of each area. 5. The apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising: a plurality of types of conversion tables corresponding to a plurality of types of document formats; and a selection unit for selecting a desired one of the plurality of types of conversion tables. The data attribute corresponding to the color information of each area obtained by the dividing means is obtained by referring to the conversion table selected by the selecting means, and is set in each of the areas. Character recognition device. 6. An area dividing step of dividing an image into a plurality of areas based on color information; and a setting step of setting a data attribute to each area based on the color information of each area obtained in the area dividing step. A character recognizing step of performing a character recognizing process according to the data attribute set in the setting step. 7. The setting step includes a conversion table in which color information and data attributes are associated with each other, and refers to the conversion table for a data attribute corresponding to the color information of each area obtained in the area dividing step. The character recognition method according to claim 6, wherein the character is acquired and set in each of the areas. 8. The character according to claim 6, wherein the data attribute includes a processing order, and the character recognition step executes a character recognition process for each area in accordance with the processing order indicated by the data attribute. Recognition method. 9. The character recognition method according to claim 6, wherein the data attribute represents a data item of each area. 10. The method according to claim 1, further comprising: a plurality of types of conversion tables corresponding to a plurality of types of document formats; and a selecting step of selecting a desired one of the plurality of types of conversion tables. The data attribute corresponding to the color information of each area obtained in the dividing step is obtained by referring to the conversion table selected in the selecting step, and is set in each of the areas. Character recognition method. 11. A storage medium for storing a control program for character recognition processing, wherein the control program divides an image into a plurality of areas based on color information; A code of a setting step of setting a data attribute in each area based on the color information of each area obtained by the above, and a code of a character recognition step of performing a character recognition process according to the data attribute set in the setting step. A storage medium characterized by the above-mentioned.