International Business Machines Corporation

Andrei Heilper

Eugene Wallach

Eugene Walach

Yaakov Navon

Lev Finkelstein

Asaf Tzadok

Alexander Sorin

Dan S Chevion

Martin Tross

Israel Berger

Ziva Sommer

Yaniv Gal

Daniel Sever

Dan Chevion

OCR-based image compression

A method of binarization used in an OCR system involves in determining text pixels by checking, for each pixel, that the difference between its value and the values of a plurality of pixels located at a predetermined distance therefrom is greater than a relative threshold corresponding to the difference in intensities between the text and the background of the image, subsampling the image at a rate corresponding to at least two pixels in order to detect kernels of text, and then binarizing the image pixels only in tiles of several stroke width sides containing text kernels by using in each tile, an absolute threshold estimated in that tile. The determining of text pixels includes, for each analyzed pixel, checking that either one of the differences between the value of the analyzed pixel and the value of the two pixels located at each intersection of a circle with each one of the row line, column line and both lines at the angle of 45 degrees, is greater than the relative threshold where that circle is centered at the location of the analyzed pixel and has a radius equal to the stroke width.

Method of binarization in an optical character recognition system

A method for automatic sorting includes receiving an item in a sequence of items to be sorted, each such item marked with a respective machine-readable identifying code and with respective characters in a location relative to the code that varies from one item to another in the sequence. A position of the code on the item is determined and, responsive to the position of the code, the location of the characters on the item is found. The characters are processed to determine a destination of the item.

Automatic location of address information on parcels sent by mass mailers

A method for locating a structured field in a gray-scale image of an object, including choosing a plurality of anchor points in the image, each anchor point having a gray-scale value associated therewith. For each anchor point there is determined a horizontal variation dependent on a difference between the gray-scale value of the anchor point and the gray-scale value of a horizontally neighboring anchor point, and there is also determined a vertical variation dependent on a difference between the gray-scale value of the anchor point and the gray-scale value of a vertically neighboring anchor point. Those anchor points whose vertical and horizontal variations obey a first or a second predefined condition are defined as vertically or horizontally dominant respectively. One or more kernels are defined in the image, each such kernel comprising a group of anchor points n predetermined mutual proximity and satisfying a third predefined condition relating the number of vertically-dominant and horizontally-dominant anchor points in the group. The structured field in the image is located using one or more kernels.

Fast location of address blocks on gray-scale images

The invention locates address indicia on digitized images of mail pieces by dividing the mail piece images into blocks; identifying rows of blocks that are adjacent along a first direction and that have similar defined image features by comparing such image features within adjacent blocks; assembling at least some of the identified rows of blocks that are adjacent along a second direction perpendicular to the first direction into address block candidate regions; and selecting the address block by scoring the various address block candidate regions on the basis of defined criteria. The criteria initially score the candidate regions based on closeness to the center of the rectangle and then reduce this initial score if an edge of the region is close to an edge of the image, the region contains a small or very high number of text rows, or the aspect ratio between the width and height of the region is high. This provides an Address Block Location (ABL) technique which is capable of being implemented for real time operation on presently available general purpose computers.

Method and apparatus for address block location

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Haifa, Israel

Andrei Heilper