JPS58129588A - Portable optical character reader - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To read easily characters on a recording medium even if they are upside-down, by selecting a dictionary of normal patterns or a dictionary of upside-down character patterns by the operation of a switch. CONSTITUTION:A switch 12 is provided in such position of a portable reader 13 that the operator can operate the reader 13 easily. The operator discriminates visually whether characters on a recording medium 1 are normal or upside- down to switch the switch 12. By this operation of the switch, a normal character dictonary 10 or an upside-down character dictonary 11 is selected. Character patterns stored on the selected dictonary are supplied to a discriminating circuit 7 and are collated with the read signal from the reader 13. Thus, characters on the recording medium are read easily without inverting the recording medium even if they are upside-down characters.

Description

[Detailed Description of the Invention] The present invention is to optically read characters printed, printed or handwritten on a form, price tag, etc. using a hand-held reader, and to recognize the read characters by comparing them with a dictionary of standard character patterns. The present invention relates to a hand-held optical character reading device for reading Japanese characters.

Conventionally, when this type of device optically reads characters written on a form using a handheld reader, the reader holds the handheld reader in one hand and holds the form with the other. In this case, when reading a form using a hand-held reader, the user had to stutter and check the top and bottom of the form beforehand.゛If an upside-down form is mixed in, it is necessary to place the hand-held reader on a stand, etc., and then turn the form upside down and read it again. There was a problem in that the reading efficiency was poor when viewed from the outside.

An object of the present invention is to provide a hand-held optical character reading device that can easily read characters on a form even if the characters on the form are upside down without having to hold the form upside down. That's true.

In the present invention, the operator visually determines whether the characters on the recording medium are normal characters or upside-down characters, and the dictionary of normal character patterns and the dictionary of upside-down character patterns are set by turning the switch 0N10FF of the hand-held reader. By selecting K, the characters on the recording medium are normal characters or upside down characters and can be read clearly.

Next, embodiments of the present invention will be described with reference to the drawings.

11th! In FIG. 2, l is a recording medium, which also includes a form with upside-down characters as shown in No. 21!11b. There are nine lamps inside the hand-held reader 13.
The light from m and 2b is irradiated onto the characters on this form, and the reflected light is supplied to the light receiving element 4 through the lens 3, and then to the photoelectric conversion circuit 5, which converts the brightness of the light into an electrical signal.
The signal is supplied to the value conversion circuit 6. These lenses 2m, 2b,
Lens 3. The light receiving element 4 and the photoelectric conversion circuit 5 are all housed in a handheld reader 13.

A switch is provided on the top of the hand-held reader 1!130 or in a place that can be easily operated when the operator holds the reader 13 in his hand. It is also possible to use two switches in parallel so that they can be operated with the right and left hands. The switch is used to determine whether the characters on the recording medium are normal characters or upside-down characters.For example, if there are 1 normal character, set it to the a side, and if there are 1b upside-down characters, set it to the b side. It looks like this.

The output of the reader 13 and the output of the tb photoelectric conversion circuit 5 are supplied to a binarization circuit 6. This binarization circuit 6 converts the output of the reader 91B into a binary character pattern of @1# and ""0" and supplies it to the identification circuit F.

On the other hand, the output from the field side of the switch 12 attached to the reader 13 is supplied to an AND circuit 8b, and the output from the b side is supplied to an AND circuit 81. The output of the normal character dictionary 10 is also supplied to the AND circuit 8b, and the output of the upside-down character dictionary 11 is also supplied to the AND circuit 8a. Normal character dictionary 1
0 stores normal character patterns, and the upside down character dictionary 11 stores upside down character patterns. Each output of the AND circuit 8a18b is supplied to the identification circuit 7 via the OR circuit 9.

(This is K) If a normal character is read, the switch 12 is set to allIll, and the AND circuit 8 is read from the normal character dictionary 10.
b. It is supplied to the fiber separation circuit 7 through the OR circuit 9. Also, if an upside-down character is read, switch 12 is set to bIIll.
Then, it is supplied from the upside-down character dictionary 11 to the p identification circuit 7 through an AND circuit gap and an OR circuit 9.

As a result, in the identification circuit 7, the character pattern output of the binarization circuit 6 and the normal character dictionary 1O or the upside-down character dictionary 1
The reading result is output by comparing it with the 10 character pattern output.

As explained above, the present invention enables reading even if the characters on the recording medium are upside down by using the switch provided on the handheld reader without reversing the form, making the reading operation easy and improving the operability. This has the effect of improving reading efficiency even when viewed.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing an embodiment of the present invention, and FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing a configuration of a hand-held reader. l... Recording medium, 2... Lens, 3.
... Lens, 4... Light receiving element, 5...
...Photoelectric conversion circuit, 6...Binarization circuit, 7.
...Identification circuit, 8...AND circuit, 9.
...OR circuit, 10...normal character dictionary,
11...Upside down character dictionary, 12...Switch, 13...Hand-held reader.

Claims (1)

[Claims] A hand-held optical system that optically reads round characters printed, printed, or handwritten on forms, price tags, etc. using a hand-held reader, and then recognizes the characters by comparing them with a dictionary of standard character patterns. In the character reading device, there is a switch that specifies whether the characters printed, printed, or handwritten on the form, price tag, etc. are normal characters or upside-down characters, and a dictionary of normal character patterns corresponding to the specifications of this switch, and a dictionary of upper and lower characters. 1. A hand-held optical character reading device characterized by comprising means for selecting a dictionary of reversed character patterns.