JPS6063687A - Information processing system - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To expands the application field of an information processing system by dividing input information into an image part and a processing information part, and processing them properly and respectively to output the result. CONSTITUTION:A known character recognition processing is performed as to the image information in a storage device 43 corresponding to the processing information part, and the recognition result is stored again in the storage device 43 temporarily. The character recognition processing is performed by using an arithmetic control device 41 corresponding to a recognition and discrimination part, storage device 43, register 44, arithmetic device 45, special arithmetic device 46, etc. Then, the recognition and discrimination result corresponding to the processing information part stored in the storage device 43 is processed responding to a program by using the arithmetic control device 41 corresponding to te processing part, register 44, arithmetic device 45, and storage device 43 corresponding to the storage part while data stored in the storage device 43 are referred to.

Description

[Detailed Description of the Invention] [Field of Application of the Invention] The present invention is directed to an information processing system using a computer or the like that consistently and automatically inputs, processes, and outputs information, and also creates input information. The present invention relates to the configuration of an information processing system that aims to reduce the required labor as much as possible while at the same time increasing the utilization effect of output results as much as possible.

[Background of the invention]

Automation or labor saving of information input in information processing systems has long been considered an essential requirement for the development of information processing application fields, and optical character reading bags (OCR), mark readers, or Devices such as magnetic printed character readers have been developed and put into practical use. Each of these automatic information input devices is effective and widely used in its intended field, but they account for less than a few percent of the total information processing system, and their fields of use are limited. This is only a small portion.

As mentioned above, one of the reasons why the above-mentioned automatic information input devices are not necessarily widely used is that the tasks that can be processed by the automatic information input device in a particular information processing system are not processed by the information processing system. This is thought to be because the proportion of the work that should be carried out is small, and there are not many cases where it can produce a large effect as a result. Further, even though it is an automatic information input device, it cannot completely process the input information it handles; for example, in an optical character reading device, 0.1 to 0. It is normal for Ol% to be misread or unreadable, and for characters that cannot be read correctly, preset rules (parity check, runes check, etc.) must be applied to ensure that the input information meets them. It is possible to process all input information only by using methods such as detecting unreadable characters as images, displaying unreadable characters as images on a display device, and manually correcting them. Optical character reading devices cannot process all types of characters; for example, the current situation is that it is not possible to read handwritten Chinese characters at all.

As exemplified above, the reason why conventional technologies, especially automatic information input devices, are not necessarily sufficiently popularized and used is that the range that automatic information input devices can process is often limited to only a part of the input information; This is thought to be because the rate of automation and labor saving in the processing system is not necessarily large in many cases.

[Purpose of the invention]

The present invention has been made in view of the above-mentioned state of the prior art, and it is noted that not all of the input information of an information processing system necessarily needs to be converted and processed into internal information of the information processing system; Only a part of the information is identified and recognized and converted and processed into internal information of the information processing system, and this result and part or all of the input information, including the part that was not identified or recognized, is treated as mere image information and the above-mentioned identification is performed.・
An information processing system that dramatically expands the applicable fields of automatic information input devices and, by extension, information processing systems including the same, by processing in relation to recognized input information and displaying or printing the processing results. The purpose is to provide a configuration of the lid.

[Summary of the invention]

In order to achieve the above object, the information processing system of the present invention increases the automation ratio of the entire system, and at the same time
The basic idea is to ensure ease of use from the user's perspective.
There is an image section that outputs the input information as is, or after only performing auxiliary processing for convenience such as display and printing, and an image section that outputs the input information as it is or after performing auxiliary processing for convenience such as display and printing, and an image section that outputs the input information as it is or after performing various processing after being recognized by a recognition device and then controlling the output of the image section. It is also characterized in that processing is performed by dividing into a processing information section that outputs the "hall" shown in FIG. 3 in relation to the image section. Furthermore, another feature of the information processing system of the present invention is that input information is processed on the assumption that it necessarily includes both the image section and the processing information section.

The information processing system of the present invention divides input information into an image part and a processing information part as described above, performs appropriate processing on each part, and outputs them, thereby using a simple image transmission device or a simple recognition device. It provides a new automatic information processing system that cannot be obtained alone, and provides a dramatic expansion of the fields in which it can be used, great economic effects, and ease of use.

[Embodiments of the invention]

The basic configuration of the information processing system of the present invention will be described based on FIG.

The information processing system of the present invention has a photoelectric conversion unit 11° recognition and
Identification unit 12. Processing unit 13. It is composed of a printing/display section 14 and a storage section 15. The photoelectric conversion unit 11 is a known imaging device or scanner that converts input information written or printed on a form, microfilm, etc. into an amount of electricity, and includes at least one photoelectric conversion device, and is used for various purposes. Depending on the situation, the camera may have two or more photoelectric conversion devices, such as an imaging device that photoelectrically converts an image portion and a scanner that photoelectrically converts processing information. In addition, as a special case, known video disc device technology (Phj, 11ips Techni
ca] Review, vol. 33, pp. 178103.
It is also possible to use a device that simultaneously photoelectrically converts image information and audio information using, for example, 1973). The recognition/identification unit 12 has a known pattern recognition function such as the recognition unit of an optical character recognition device, and recognizes and identifies the processing information part in the input information converted into an electrical quantity by the photoelectric conversion unit, and reads the information. Convert to internal code defined by the information processing system. Also,
If the amount of electricity sent from the photoelectric conversion unit 11 corresponds to the image part in the input information, the recognition/identification unit 12 does not recognize it and only performs auxiliary processing for printing/displaying. Then, it is sent to the printing/displaying section 14 through the processing section 13. The processing unit 13 has the same function as the central processing unit in the known computer system 11, and refers to the data in the storage unit 5 as necessary, and converts the processing information part in the input information into the photoelectric conversion unit 11, The processing information sent through the recognition/identification section 12 (converted into an internal code) is processed, and the processing result is associated with the image part in the input information to be printed on a printing/display section 14 such as a laser printer. Output. The storage unit 15 includes a high-speed storage device using a core memory, wire, or half-eight memory used in a normal computer system, as well as a storage disk, especially when storing a large amount of image part of input information. Use an external storage device such as a device. The connection section 16 that connects the processing section 13 and the printing/display section 14 may be equivalent to a normal inter-device connection line, but if necessary, a communication circuit or the like may be used to connect the printing/display section 14 to a terminal. It can also be a device.

FIG. 2 is a very simple example of the input information 21 used in the information processing system of the present invention, and the input information 21 is
It consists of a processing information section 22 and an image information section 23. The information processing system of the present invention includes a processing information section 22 of the input information 21.
is read and converted into an internal code, and the image section 23
is photoelectrically converted and sent to the printing/display section 14. The processing information part 22 converted into the internal code is further processed by the processing part 1 in FIG.
3, and is finally output to the printing/display section 14 with reference to the information stored in the storage section 15. In addition, the processing information section 22 can also be used as control information for selecting the print/display section to be output when there are a plurality of print/display sections 14. FIG. 3 shows an example of the form in which the input information 21 in FIG. 2 is processed by the information processing system of the present invention and is finally output. Part 2
3 is output as is as the image part 24 of the output information 27, and the output information 27 further includes the processing information part 2 of the input information 21.
Additional information 25 and 26 obtained by processing 2 is output in the form of one character or an image.

In the embodiment described above, the image areas 23 and 24 can be used, for example, as the address of mail, so that various billing operations can be automatically performed and the address can be written in kanji. By using the system, it is possible to simultaneously automate business processing and improve the efficiency of using processing results.

FIG. 4 shows another embodiment of the information processing system of the present invention, which includes a photoelectric conversion section 48, a paper feeding mechanism 49,
Arithmetic control device 41. An arithmetic unit 45, a register 44, a special arithmetic unit 46, an input/output control device 42, a storage device 43, a control device 47 for the photoelectric conversion section 48 and paper feed mechanism 49, and an output device 50 are shown.

This embodiment has a similar setup to an optical character reader (Electronics, handwritten OCR, H-8059°pp, 1
978. December 1973), a scanning photoelectric conversion device similar to a television vidicon camera etc. was used as a photoelectric conversion unit 4.
8, by employing an electrostatic dot printer, a cathode ray tube display device having an image display function, or a facsimile output device as the output device 50, the object of the present invention can be achieved, that is, both an image portion with a stamp and a processing information portion are included. The process of automatically processing the input information (FIG. 2) to obtain the output shown in FIG. 3 can be done consistently and automatically.

In an optical character reader using a normal scanning photoelectric conversion section, the unknown character section 22 to be recognized is scanned line by line, and first, the photoelectric conversion section 48 passes it through the register 44 to the arithmetic and control unit 4 as image information. It is stored in the storage device 43 under control.

In addition, at this time, instead of adding some auxiliary processing before or after storing it in the storage device, or storing all the image information equivalent to the processing information section 22 - rows, the unknown character mathematics association in the processing information section 22 By storing only the image information corresponding to the processing information 22 and performing the processing of scanning the processed information 22 with the photoelectric conversion unit 48 and the recognition processing performed using the arithmetic unit 45 etc. in parallel, the storage device 43 mainly stores the recognition processing. It is also normal to store only the results obtained.

In the information processing system of the present invention, not only the processing information section 22 in the input information 21 is scanned as is done by the above-mentioned ordinary optical character reader, but also the image section 23 is scanned for photoelectric conversion. The image information obtained by this photoelectric conversion is also stored in the storage device 43. Then,
A known character recognition process is performed on the image information in the storage device 43 corresponding to the processing information section 22, and the recognition results are stored in the storage device 4.
3. Temporarily store again. Here, character recognition processing is carried out by an arithmetic control device 41 corresponding to the recognition/identification section 12, and a storage device 4.
3, the register 44, the arithmetic unit 45, the special arithmetic unit 46, etc. are used.

After the above processing, the recognition/identification results corresponding to the processing information part 22 stored in the storage device 43 are processed by the arithmetic and control unit 41, the j-nosister 44, which corresponds to the processing part 13 in FIG.
Using the arithmetic unit 45 and the storage device 43, which also corresponds to the storage section 15 in FIG. Accordingly, processing is performed while referring to data stored in advance in the same storage device 43. Note that the processing referred to here means that the input information described in the processing information section 22 and the processing section 13,
and by programs and data in the storage device 15 means any process that obtains output information depending on input information.

In the embodiment shown in FIG. 4 above, for the sake of simplicity,
As for the photoelectric conversion device corresponding to the photoelectric conversion section 11 in FIG. 1, the same one can be used for the processing information section 22 and the image section 23, and the same one can be used as the recognition/identification section 12 and the processing section 13 in FIG. The arithmetic control unit 41, register 44, and arithmetic unit 45 of FIG. 4 can be used for both, and the storage device 43 of FIG. It is assumed that it is also used as the storage section 15.

After the above processing, the output information 27 is printed or displayed on the output device 50 corresponding to the printing/display section 14 in FIG. Similarly to the photoelectric conversion section 48, the output device 50 also outputs the output information 2.
Different printing/display devices may be used for the image portion 24 and additional information portions 25 and 26 in 7, or both may be printed out on the same page by using an electrostatic dot printer or the like.

An embodiment of the present invention has been described above in detail.

Although not mentioned in the above explanation, evidence R1 in input information 21
In accordance with the rules of 1, it is easy to make changes such as making the processing information section 22 different from the scanning range for photoelectric conversion. It is clear that it can be implemented.

Note that FIG. 5 shows the processing information section 53 that constitutes the input information 51.
, and the image portion 52 in accordance with the above embodiment, and FIG. 6 also generally shows the contents of the output information 61, that is, the image portion 62 and the additional information portion 63. be.

Furthermore, the present invention is applicable to many fields such as various counter operations and service operations.

〔Effect of the invention〕

As explained above, according to the present invention, the applicable fields of information processing systems can be dramatically increased, and the effect is great.

[Brief explanation of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a basic configuration diagram of the information processing system of the present invention,
FIG. 2 shows an example of input information, and FIG. 3 shows an example of output results. FIG. 4 shows a detailed embodiment, FIG. 5 shows a general example of input information compatible with the detailed embodiment of FIG. 4, and FIG. 6 shows an example of output output by the embodiment of FIG. 4. Figure 4 Figure 71/ 5[21

Claims (1)

[Scope of Claims] 1. A first means for converting information on a recording medium having a recording section for first information and second information into an electrical signal. a second means for automatically recognizing the first information and converting it into code information; and a third means for processing the code information.
An information processing system comprising: means; and fourth means for performing processing to associate the result of the processing with the second information converted into the electrical signal. 2. A first means for converting information of a recording medium into an electrical signal, having a recording section for first information and second information; and a first means for automatically recognizing the first information and converting it into code information. a second means for converting; a third means for storing data;
and a fourth means for performing a process of associating the result of processing the code information with the second information converted into the electrical signal while referring to the data stored in the third means. Information processing system.