JPS63121991A - Dictionary forming method for character recognizing device - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To recognize document written by a special type of character other than types printed on document for forming a dictionary, as well by specifying an arbitrary character deseired for registration to a dictionary from an input character string, extracting the feature amount of the specified character and registering it to a dictionary. CONSTITUTION:An arbitrary document at user's side are read out, and an arbitrary character is specified. Its feature amount is extracted and registered in the dictionary. In such a case, if a registered feature amount exists, the arithmetic means of the amount to a registered parameter is taken and registered again, or the newly amount is replaced with registered one to register it. Thus no special document is prepared to generate a dictionary, and the dictionary of arbitrary characters can be generated and registered easily and quickly. Moreover addition to a registered dictionary, replacement and new registration can be made easily. Further, a multifont dictionary can be very easily formed and registered.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION [Technical Field] The present invention relates to a method for creating a feature dictionary used in recognition processing in a character recognition device such as an optical character reader (QC:R).

[Prior art]

In recent years, with the development of personal computers and the like, it has become possible to implement character recognition processing such as OCR by software processing using a personal computer. FIG. 7 shows the general system configuration. The scanner 11 is.

The character string on the document is read optically, and the white pixel is “0”.
Black pixels are converted into a binary pattern of "1". PC 1
In step 2, first, the binary pattern read by the scanner 11 is cut out character by character, and its feature amount is extracted. There are various methods for extracting feature values, but for example, if a specific direction code is attached to the outline of a character pattern, the character pattern is divided into multiple blocks, and each block is extracted by direction code. One method is to take a histogram. In this case, the number of blocks to be divided is 16 blocks,
If the direction code is 8 directions, the feature amount (feature parameter) is expressed in 128 dimensions.

Next, the computer 12 performs distance calculation (matching) between the extracted feature amount and the same feature amount of a dictionary registered in advance in the dictionary file 13 to determine candidate characters.
! The identification results are output to the display device 14 and printer 15.

Conventionally, such an OCR dictionary was created as shown in FIG. A dictionary creation manuscript in which multiple identical characters are printed consecutively is specially prepared. First, one line of the manuscript is read with a scanner and stored in the RAM inside the computer. Next, one character is repeatedly cut out. Then, feature quantities are extracted for each of a plurality of identical character patterns, and the average of these is taken and registered in a dictionary file. This is done for each line of the manuscript for dictionary creation.

However, the dictionary created by this method is Lf
i! , rIi can only be applied when the character type of the manuscript to be written matches that of the manuscript for dictionary creation,
Documents containing arbitrary character types, modified characters, etc. can be sent to L2'
There was an inconvenience that it could not be targeted for Ilt.

[Purpose] The purpose of the present invention is to allow JJλ drafts written in special character types other than the character types printed in the manuscript for dictionary creation to be arbitrarily S
The object of the present invention is to provide a dictionary creation method that can be used as a dictionary object.

〔composition〕

The present invention reads any manuscript in the hands of a user,
Specify the arbitrary character, extract the feature amount of the specified character, and register it in the dictionary. In this case, if there is a feature that has already been registered, it will be re-registered by taking the average of the already registered parameters, or it will be replaced with the already registered one.
You can also.

An embodiment of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 1 shows an example of the overall processing flow of the dictionary creation method of the present invention. First, a character string of an arbitrary document as shown in FIG. 2(A) is read by the scanner 11, and the white pixels are 11 Q 71. Black pixels are converted into a binary pattern of 111 I+ and input to the computer 12 (step 101).
In the personal computer 12, when this input character string pattern is stored in the page memory in the main body, it is also displayed on the display device 14.
(Step 102). The user looks at the content displayed on the display device 14, selects one character to be registered in the dictionary, and inputs the number of rows and columns using, for example, a keyboard attached to the personal computer 12 (step 103).

For example, for the manuscript in Figure 2 (A), ramJ's rm
For J, "1" and "6" are important.
If it is rmJ of J, enter "2" and "2". In addition,
It is also possible to use a light pen, a mouse, etc. as an input means instead of a keyboard.

The personal computer 12 cuts out one line from the character string pattern in the page memory (step 104). Then, check the corresponding line where this cut out line is specified, step 1
05), if the line does not match, proceed to cutting out the next line. 9
．． When the corresponding line of the character to be recorded is found, the process proceeds to character extraction (step 106).Character extraction is performed by cutting out the character string in the corresponding line one character at a time, and cutting out the character string in the corresponding position (column) where the extracted character is specified. Check whether the character is in the corresponding position (step 107), and if the character is not in the corresponding position, proceed to cutting out the next character. In this way, when the target character is cut out and the character pattern is displayed on the display device 14, feature quantities (feature parameters) are extracted and also displayed (step 108). An example of this display is shown in FIG. 2(B). The user looks at the displayed characters and feature parameters and decides whether to register or not. Step 109), <FM
When specified, it is recorded in the dictionary file 13 (step 110).

Figure 3 shows an example of the structure of a dictionary. The dictionary corresponding to one character has one character code, one dictionary number (used to distinguish character types, etc.), one number (number of characters used to create the dictionary), and N. It consists of (N dimensions) feature parameters.

Next, a few examples of dictionary registration will be described.

FIG. 4 shows an example of the dictionary registration process flow when the same character as the registration designated character has already been registered in the dictionary IF. The user specifies dictionary registration and inputs the registered character code. On the computer, check whether this registered character code is already registered or not, and if it is an unregistered character code,
The extracted feature parameters are registered in the dictionary together with the input character code, and the number is set to 1. If it is a registered character code, read the number in the corresponding dictionary and set the value to n,
The following formula.

The feature amount is calculated according to the following, and the result is re-registered in the dictionary. At this time, the number becomes n+1.

Fig. 5 shows the processing flow of another example of IF registration. In this case, when there are multiple features for one character code, such as a multi-font dictionary, the dictionary number is specified. This is an example of searching for and registering a target template.

The procedure of the registration process is basically the same as that shown in FIG.

Figure 6 shows that when the same character as the character you want to register has already been registered, do you want to re-register it by averaging as shown in Figure 4?
This is an example of a processing flow in which registration conditions are arbitrarily changed depending on the nature of the dictionary of characters to be registered by specifying whether to perform replacement registration or new registration. How to specify registration conditions.

At the beginning of the dictionary registration process, for example, you can set the conditions by number using the menu method, store them in memory and check them according to the flow shown in Figure 6, or you can communicate with the computer just before the actual registration process. It is also possible to decide by

〔effect〕

As is clear from the above description, the following effects can be obtained according to the present invention.

(1) There is no need to prepare a special manuscript for dictionary creation.

A dictionary of arbitrary characters can be easily and quickly created and registered.

(2) Additions to existing registered dictionaries, replacement, and new registration can be easily performed.

(3) Creating and registering a multi-font dictionary is extremely easy.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

1 is a processing flowchart of an embodiment of the dictionary creation method of the present invention; 2181 is a diagram showing an example of a manuscript, characters to be registered, and an example of their characteristic parameters; FIG. 3 is a diagram showing an example of the configuration of a dictionary; 4 to 6 are processing flowcharts of dictionary 9 records, and FIG. 7 is a diagram showing an example of an OCR system configuration.
FIG. 8 is a diagram illustrating a conventional dictionary creation method. 11...Scanner, 12...PC, 13.
...Dictionary file, 14...Display device, 15...
・Printer. Fig. 1 Fig. 2 (A) Fig. 2 (B) Fig. 3 Fig. 5 Fig. 6 Fig. 7 Fig. 8

Claims (2)

[Claims] (1) In a character recognition device that cuts out the input string into individual characters and recognizes the cut out characters using a dictionary prepared in advance, specify any character from the input string that you want to register in the dictionary, and 1. A dictionary creation method for a character recognition device, characterized by extracting characteristic amounts of characters that have been read and registering them in a dictionary. (2) If the character to be registered is already registered in the dictionary, the character according to claim 1 is re-registered by taking the average of the characteristic parameters of the extracted character and the already registered parameters. How to create a dictionary for a recognition device.