JPS6175483A - Character reader - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To speed up character recognition processing by sending binary-coded character data written in an image memory directly to a character recognizing device for character recognition, and writing the character code as its recognition result in the image memory. CONSTITUTION:An image input equipment controller 1 writes image data from image input equipment 4 in the image memory 2 through a main memory bus 200. The written character data is inputted to an image processor 3, converted into binary data fro character recognition, and then written in the memory 2 again. This binary-coded data is sent to the character recognizing device 9 through a bus 200, which recognizes the character, so that the character code as its result is written in the memory 2 in a depth 8-bit direction. Then, a computer 6 for control reads a character code out of the memory 2 through a data bus 100 to display the corresponding character and decide on the correctness of the character.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION [Technical Field of the Invention] The present invention relates to a character reading device that reads character data included in image data input from an image input device such as an ITV.

[Problems with Background Art] FIG. 3 is a block diagram showing an example of a conventional character reading device of this type. An image input device controller 1, a plurality of image memories 2, and an image processing processor 3 are connected between a data bus 100 and an image memory bus 200 that operates at video speed. Further, image data from an image input device 4 is input to the image input device controller 1 . Data bus 100 is connected to bus 300 via bus interface 5. This bus 300i:
is connected to a control computer 6, a main memory 7 of this control computer 6, and an interface 8, and a character recognition device 9 is further connected to the interface 8. However, the data bus 100 is used for transmitting command data from the control computer 6 to the image input device controller 1 and image memory 2, and for transmitting command data to the image input device controller Li!
! ! It is for transmitting data from the image memory 2 to the control computer 6 and the main memory 7.

An image input device controller 1 transfers character data input from an image input device 4 such as an ITV to an image memory bus 200.
The character data written to the image memory 2 is accessed by the image processing processor 3 via the image memory bus 200, and is subjected to image quality improvement such as filtering, binarization processing for character recognition, etc. After the data bus 1 is processed, the memory cycle is stolen.
00, bus interface 5, and main memory 71.00 via bus 300. :I get sucked in. The binary character data written in the main memory 7 is sent to the character recognition device 9 via the bus 300 and the interface 8, where the recognized result (
The character code) is again written into the main memory 7 via the interface 8 and the bus 300. Thereafter, the control computer 6 reads the character code written in the main memory 7 and performs processing such as displaying the character corresponding to this character code or determining the correctness of the character.

[Problems with Background Art] In the conventional character reading device described above, character data written in the image memory 2 is transferred to the data bus 100. Since it is necessary to write once into the main memory 7 via the bus interface 5 and the bus 300, and this process takes time, there is a drawback that the overhead of character recognition processing time by the character recognition device 9 is large.

[Object of the Invention] In view of the above drawbacks, an object of the present invention is to provide a character reading device that can perform character recognition processing at high speed.

U Overview of the Invention] In the present invention, an image input device, an image memory, and an image processing processor are connected. A character recognition device is connected to the image memory bus, the binary character data written in the image memory is directly sent to the character recognition device for character recognition, and the resulting character code is written in the image memory. This configuration achieves the above object.

[Embodiment of the Invention] An embodiment of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings, in which the same parts as those of the conventional example are given the same reference numerals. FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing an embodiment of the character reading device of the present invention. An image input device controller 1, a plurality of image memories 2, an image processor 3, and a character recognition device 9 are connected between the data bus 100 and the image memory bus 200. Further, image data from an image input device 4 such as an ITV is input to the image input device controller 1. data bus 1
o○ is connected to the bus 300 via the bus interface 5. This bus 300 includes a control computer 6
And the main memory 7 of this control computer 6 is connected.

FIG. 2 is a schematic diagram showing how to use the image memory shown in FIG. 1. The image memory has a configuration of n x m x 13 bits (in the depth direction).

Next, the operation of this embodiment will be explained. First, the image input device controller 1 writes image data input from the image input device 81 4 into the image memory 2 via the image memory bus 200 . At this time, as shown in FIG. 2 (A>), the shape of a character (A in this case) is written into the nxm bits of the image memory, and the gradation data of the character A is written into the 8-bit depth. The character data is taken in by the image processing processor 3 via the image memory bus 200, where the image is improved, the position of the character data is corrected, and the character data is binarized for character recognition. The processed image data is stored in the image memory 2 again.
written inside. Thereafter, the binarized character data 7 in the image memory 2 is sent to the character recognition device 9 via the image memory bus 200, where the character HH is processed, and the resulting character code is shown in FIG. 2(B). As shown, the data is written in the 8-bit depth direction of the image memory 2. In addition, Fig. 2 (B
) In the figure, the part indicated by the symbol C indicates the character code writing area. After that, the control computer 6
reads the character code written in the image memory 2 via the bus interface 5 and the data passco oO, displays the character corresponding to this character code, or recognizes whether this character code is ``/υ''. and performs processing such as determining the correctness of the character.

Therefore, according to this embodiment, character data in character recognition processing by the character recognition device 9 and character codes that are recognition results are sent and received between the image memory 2 and the character recognition device 9 using only the image memory bus 200. Therefore, character recognition processing can be performed at high speed by fully utilizing the characteristics of the image memory bus 200 that moves at video speed.

Furthermore, by configuring the image memory 2 to also write character codes, the image memory 2 can be used effectively, and
The capacity of the main memory 7 can be reduced accordingly,
The cost of the device can be reduced.

[Effects of the Invention] As described above, according to the character reading device of the present invention, the character recognition device is connected to the image memory bus that transmits image data between the image input device controller, the image memory, and the image processing processor 3 at video speed. The character data written in the image memory is directly sent to the character recognition device via the image memory bus, and the character code that is the recognition result is similarly sent to the image memory via the image memory bus. The writing configuration has the effect of speeding up character recognition processing.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing an embodiment of the character reading device of the present invention, FIG. 2 is a schematic diagram showing an example of how the image memory shown in FIG. 1 is used, and FIG. 3 is a conventional character reading device. It is a block diagram showing an example. 1...-Image input device controller 2...Image memory 3...Image processing processor 4
...Image input device 6-・Control computer 7-
...Main memory 9--Character recognition device 100--Data bus 200...Image memory bus 300--
Bus agent Patent attorney Kensuke Chika (1 other person) Figure 1 Figure 2 Figure 3

Claims (1)

[Claims] An image memory into which character data is written, a character recognition device, an image processor which performs various processes such as binarization on the character data written in the image memory, and inputs image data from an image input device and converts it into the above-mentioned. An image input device controller that writes data into the image memory is connected to the image memory bus, the character data written in the image memory is sent to the character recognition device through the image memory bus, and the character recognition results are sent to the image memory bus. A character reading device characterized in that writing is performed in the image memory via the image memory.