JPS6360413B2 - - Google Patents

Description

[Detailed Description of the Invention] The present invention relates to sorting of data media in a system combined with OCR, OMR, etc., and in particular, sorting data media according to content attributes possessed by input data groups such as questionnaire surveys and scoring of test answers. The present invention relates to a sorting device, a so-called sorter.

Conventionally, in such classification devices, when the attributes of the input data can be estimated to some extent from the attributes of a similar data group collected before, for example, the age composition of the population living in a certain area, etc. It was not possible to know the attributes of the input data at the time of the survey before classification, unless there was a clear correlation between the data at the time of the survey and the data at the time of the survey.

Therefore, in conventional devices, the stacker group that stores classified data has no choice but to set the storage capacity of each unit stacker to be uniform, and as the number of data classification attributes increases, the stacker group of the sorter The disadvantage is that the volume of the parts that make up the structure increases.

The present invention has been made in view of this background. That is, the purpose is to store data groups classified according to classification and attributes in each stacker according to the amount of classified attribute groups, and to provide a means to recognize data attributes by presorting. At the same time, by setting the storage capacity of each stacker to a smaller capacity in stages starting from the largest one, the overall size of the apparatus can be reduced.

A feature of the present invention is to have a stacker group consisting of a hopper and a plurality of pockets, which are connected to each other via a feeding means, and a means for reading the data content of the medium is located between the two. and a selection means for selecting the pocket, and a control means for the selection means, wherein the medium storage capacity of each pocket is configured in stages starting from the maximum capacity, and an intermediate stack is arranged in the intermediate portion. and the control means has a storage function section and a data processing means, and as a first processing step, the reading means reads the data contents of the entire group of media, and the processing means reads the data contents. After classifying the attributes, the second processing step is to classify the media into each pocket of the stacker group in the order of the distribution amount within the section according to the attributes.

The present invention will be described below in more detail using the following cited examples.

FIG. 1 is an explanatory diagram of a conventional sorter.
The figure shows a system block diagram, in which 1 is the hopper section, 2 is the data content and attribute recognition section, and 3 is the hopper section.
3 indicates a selection means for selecting a sorting destination, 3 indicates a stacker group that accommodates the sorted media, 5 indicates a control section that controls the recognition section 2 and selection means 3, thick arrows indicate the flow of data media, and arrows indicate the flow of data media. indicates the flow of control signals or data information read out by the recognition unit 3 from the medium.

The basic operation is to place a data group whose attributes and contents are unknown in the hopper section 1, and the recognition section 3 reads the data contents, simultaneously recognizes the attributes of the data group, and based on the attributes, the control section 5 By controlling the selection means 4, the media passing through the recognition section 2 one by one are classified according to the attributes to which the data contents of the media belong, and are sorted and stored in one of the pockets of the stacker section 4.

At this time, it should be noted that the distribution of a data group classified based on a certain classification attribute cannot be determined by this method until all of the data group to be classified has passed through the recognition unit 2. Therefore, in the stacker that constitutes this method, each pocket (unit stacker) of the stacker 4 is used with a classification attribute defined in advance, but since the amount (distribution) of the medium that will fit into each pocket is unknown, each pocket You have no choice but to set them to equal amounts.

On the other hand, FIG. 2 is an explanatory diagram of a configuration according to an embodiment of the present invention. 1, 2, and 3 in the figure are the same as in FIG. Further, 4' is a stacker group corresponding to 4 in FIG. 1, which is distributed so that the storage capacity of each pocket is gradually reduced. Also, 5' is the first
This is the same control unit as shown in the figure. Also, 5'' in 5' is a memory. 6 is an intermediate stacker for presorting, and 7 is a display section for displaying the classification attributes of each pocket in the stacker group 4'. The definition of is the same as in FIG.

What should be noted in comparison with Fig. 1 is that this configuration has a pre-sorting stage, in which the entire data group to be classified is operated in advance between the hopper 1, the recognition unit 2, and the intermediate stacker 6. In other words, when the device of this configuration grasps the contents of the entire data group, when the classification attribute is set, it is stored in the memory 5'' via the control unit 5'. By processing the data content, it is possible to determine the number of media holding data groups included in each of the divided classification attributes (distribution between attribute categories). If the distribution between them is determined, it is of course possible to sort them in descending order of distribution amount.

The feature of sorting by this configuration is that the entire data group is read in the pre-sorting stage shown in Figure 1, the number of media holding data existing in the sections divided according to the classification attributes is grasped, and the number of media holding the data is determined. At the same time, the divided sections are displayed in correspondence with each other according to the attribute stored for each section content of each pocket, in order of the number of distributions. It is possible to sequentially designate and store media in categories from large capacity pockets to small capacity pockets, and the classification section of each pocket is displayed on the display section 7, so there is no problem in sorting and categorizing.

FIG. 3 is a supplementary diagram of one embodiment, showing one example of an input medium. In the figure, 10 is an answer column that can be read by OMR or OCR, and 11 in the figure is an answer column that cannot be read by the above means, etc. This is a data column whose input medium must be read by a human. . The present invention is most suitable for sorting processing when some data that cannot be converted into EDP remains on such media. An example of an attribute for classification is, for example, 10 classification items in the answer column. To give an example of how to distribute the capacity of the pockets of the stacker 4', it was mentioned earlier that the pockets are made smaller in stages starting from the largest one. If you distribute it like 2, 1/3, ...1/n,
Even if there are n classification categories and the amount of media belonging to each section is exactly the same, only the unit amount can be accommodated, and if the number of categories is increased, the amount of data included in each section will decrease. Therefore, there is no need to change the basic capacity of each pocket in the stacker 4', and if the pockets for a particular section partially overflow, the pockets that are not defined as pockets corresponding to the number of sections will be filled. , for example, 1/n+1 and 1/n+2 may be newly designated by the control unit 5'.

Further, for convenience of the stacker configuration, the capacity of pockets up to a predetermined number n' may be determined by a harmonic sequence of 1, 1/2, and 1/3, and the capacities after n' may be the same.

The point is that compared to the case where the storage pockets have the same capacity, the structure of the present invention is characterized in that it is possible to sort a large amount of media or obtain a large number of compartmentalized pockets with the same exclusive volume. The point is that it can bring out certain effects.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

FIG. 1 is an explanatory diagram of a sorter according to a conventional example, FIG. 2 is an explanatory diagram of a configuration according to an embodiment of the present invention, and FIG. 3 is a supplementary diagram of one embodiment. In the figure, 1 is a hopper part, 2 is a recognition part, 3 is a selection means, 4, 4' is a stacker part, 5, 5' is a control part,
5'' is a memory, and 6 is an intermediate stacker.

Claims (1)

[Scope of Claims] 1. A stacker group consisting of a hopper and a plurality of pockets, which are connected via a feeding means, and a reading means for reading the data content of the medium and the pockets are located between the two. The sorter has a selection means for selecting and a control means for the selection means, wherein the medium storage capacity of each pocket is configured in stages starting from a maximum capacity, and an intermediate stack portion is provided in the intermediate portion, and The control means has a storage function section and a data processing means, and as a first processing step, the reading means reads the data contents of the entire group of media, and the processing means classifies the attributes of the data contents. after, second
A sorter characterized in that, as a processing step, the media are sorted into each pocket of the stacker group in the order of the distribution amount within the classification section according to the attribute.