System and method for selecting and displaying segmentation parameters for optical character recognition

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9286534-B2
Application number	US-201213684007-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Nov 21, 2012
Priority date	Oct 17, 2012
Publication date	Mar 15, 2016
Grant date	Mar 15, 2016

Abstract

A computer-implemented method for selecting at least one segmentation parameter for optical character recognition is provided. The method can include receiving an image having a character string that includes one or more characters. The method can also include receiving a character string identifying each of the one or more characters. The method can also include automatically generating at least one segmentation parameter. The method can also include performing segmentation on the image having the character string using the at least one segmentation parameter. The method can also include determining if a resultant segmentation satisfies one or more criteria and if the resultant segmentation satisfies the one or more criteria, selecting the at least one segmentation parameter.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A computer-implemented method for selecting at least one segmentation parameter for optical character recognition comprising:
receiving, using one or more computing devices, an image having a character string that includes one or more characters;
receiving, using the one or more computing devices, a character string identifying each of the one or more characters;
generating, using the one or more computing devices, at least one segmentation parameter;
performing segmentation, using the one or more computing devices, on the image having the character string using the at least one segmentation parameter;
determining, using the one or more computing devices, if a resultant segmentation satisfies an ASCII uniformity criteria;
if the resultant segmentation satisfies the ASCII uniformity criteria, selecting the at least one segmentation parameter;
displaying at least a portion of the image at the one or more computing devices; and
displaying a user-selectable option configured to allow a user select between a manually generated segmentation option and an automatic segmentation option.

2. The computer-implemented method of claim 1 , further comprising:
displaying, using the one or more computing devices, a user-selectable option associated with the segmentation, the user-selectable option configured to allow a user to indicate either a correct segmentation or an incorrect segmentation.

3. The computer-implemented method of claim 1 , further comprising:
displaying, using the one or more computing devices, the resultant segmentation.

4. The computer-implemented method of claim 1 , further comprising:
displaying, using the one or more computing devices, the at least one segmentation parameter.

5. The computer-implemented method of claim 4 , wherein the at least one segmentation parameter includes one or more polarity, line refinement, angle search range, skew search range, normalization mode, stroke width, binarization threshold, border fragments, pixel count, fragment contrast threshold, character height, character width, intercharacter gap, intracharacter gap, fragment distance to main line, fragment merge mode, minimum character aspect, character width type, analysis mode, pitch metric, pitch type, minimum pitch, space insertion, width of space character.

6. The computer-implemented method of claim 1 , further comprising: displaying, using the one or more computing devices, at least one trained image.

7. A computer program product residing on a non-transitory computer readable storage medium having a plurality of instructions stored thereon, which when executed by a processor, cause the processor to perform operations comprising:
receiving, using one or more computing devices, an image having a character string that includes one or more characters;
receiving, using the one or more computing devices, a character string identifying each of the one or more characters;
generating, using the one or more computing devices, at least one segmentation parameter;
performing segmentation, using the one or more computing devices, on the image having the character string using the at least one segmentation parameter;
determining, using the one or more computing devices, if a resultant segmentation satisfies an ASCII uniformity criteria;
if the resultant segmentation satisfies the ASCII uniformity criteria, selecting the at least one segmentation parameter;
displaying at least a portion of the image at the one or more computing devices; and
displaying a user-selectable option configured to allow a user select between a manually generated segmentation option and an automatic segmentation option.

8. The computer program product of claim 7 , further comprising:
displaying, using the one or more computing devices, a user-selectable option associated with the segmentation, the user-selectable option configured to allow a user to indicate either a correct segmentation or an incorrect segmentation.

9. The computer program product of claim 7 , further comprising:
displaying, using the one or more computing devices, the resultant segmentation.

10. The computer program product of claim 7 , further comprising:
displaying, using the one or more computing devices, the at least one segmentation parameter.

11. The computer program product of claim 10 , wherein the at least one segmentation parameter includes one or more polarity, line refinement, angle search range, skew search range, normalization mode, stroke width, binarization threshold, border fragments, pixel count, fragment contrast threshold, character height, character width, intercharacter gap, intracharacter gap, fragment distance to main line, fragment merge mode, minimum character aspect, character width type, analysis mode, pitch metric, pitch type, minimum pitch, space insertion, width of space character.

12. The computer program product of claim 7 , further comprising: displaying, using the one or more computing devices, at least one trained image.

13. A computing system configured for selecting at least one segmentation parameter for optical character recognition comprising:
one or more processors configured to receive an image having a character string that includes one or more characters, the one or more processors further configured to receive a character string identifying each of the one or more characters, the one or more processors further configured to generate at least one segmentation parameter, the one or more processors further configured to perform segmentation on the image having the character string using the at least one segmentation parameter, the one or more processors further configured to determine if a resultant segmentation satisfies an ASCII uniformity criteria, and if the resultant segmentation satisfies the ASCII uniformity criteria, the one or more processors further configured to select the at least one segmentation parameter, the one or more processors further configured to display at least a portion of the image at the one or more computing devices and to display a user-selectable option configured to allow a user select between a manually generated segmentation option and an automatic segmentation option.

14. The computing system of claim 13 , further comprising:
displaying, using the one or more computing devices, a user-selectable option associated with the segmentation, the user-selectable option configured to allow a user to indicate either a correct segmentation or an incorrect segmentation.

15. The computing system of claim 13 , further comprising:
displaying, using the one or more computing devices, the resultant segmentation.

16. The computing system of claim 13 , further comprising:
displaying, using the one or more computing devices, the at least one segmentation parameter.

17. The computing system of claim 16 , wherein the at least one segmentation parameter includes one or more polarity, line refinement, angle search range, skew search range, normalization mode, stroke width, binarization threshold, border fragments, pixel count, fragment contrast threshold, character height, character width, intercharacter gap, intracharacter gap, fragment distance to main line, fragment merge mode, minimum character aspect, character width type, analysis mode, pitch metric, pitch type, minimum pitch, space insertion, width of space character.

Assignees

• Cognex Corp

Inventors

• Zadeh Ali
• Petry John
• Steiner Kim Marie
• Shuman Steven Patrick

Classifications

• G06V30/153 Primary

  using recognition of characters or words · CPC title

• G06V30/158

  using character size, text spacings or pitch estimation · CPC title

• G06V30/10

  Character recognition · CPC title

• G06K9/344 Primary

  Physics · mapped topic

• G06K2209/01

  Physics · mapped topic