Patent · US Expired

Document image decoding using text line column-based heuristic scoring

US6738518B1 · kind B1 · utility

37Cited by
11References
10Claims
0Family size

Assignee

Inventors

Key dates

Filing dateMay 12, 2000
Grant dateMay 18, 2004
Priority date
Expiry dateMay 12, 2020

Classification

  • Technology area (CPC G)Physics
  • CPC primaryG06V30/10
  • WIPO fieldComputer technology
  • WIPO sectorElectrical engineering

Abstract

In a text recognition system that uses a stochastic finite state network to model a document image layout, the computational efficiency of text line decoding is improved. In a typical implementation, the dynamic programming operation that accomplishes decoding uses actual scores computed between two-dimensional (2D) bitmapped character template images and the (2D) bitmapped observed image. Scoring measures the degree of a match between a character template and the observed image. Computation of these actual scores is replaced with the simpler computation of column-based (i.e., one-dimensional) heuristic scores. Because the column-based heuristic scores can be shown to be a true upper bound on actual template-image scores, the heuristic scores are accurate enough to use in place of actual scoring during text line decoding. The heuristic scores essentially reduce the expensive two-dimensional computation of the actual template-image scores required by prior decoding methods to a simpler but accurate one-dimensional computation.

Source: USPTO / EPO open patent data. Objective bibliographic and citation counts.