Method and apparatus for adaptive image processing by recognizing a

Abstract

In a system for capturing an image of a document having a characterizing indicium associated therewith, the invention includes the step of storing in the system a plurality of document templates. Each document template defines locations of a first type and second type information blocks on a corresponding one of a plurality of document types. The document templates are accessible by an indicium value. The invention further includes storing in the system a table relating the first type information block to first type processing parameters and a second type information block to second type processing parameters. The invention further includes the step of capturing an image of the document and storing the image in an image buffer. Then, a characterizing indicium associated with the document is recognized by the system. Thereafter, one of the plurality of document templates is accessed in response to a value of the recognized characterizing indicium associated with the document. Then, a first type block of information is selectively accessed from the image of the document in the image buffer, at a location defined by the document template. Thereafter, first type processing parameters are selectively accessed from the table corresponding to the first type information block. Using the first type processing parameters so accessed, the information from the first type block is processed. This adaptive processing can include a selected image compression algorithm suited to the particular type of image in the data block. The adaptive processing can further include the preparation of an output image data object file which is routed to a recipient or to a work flow in response to the particular document type represented by the indicium associated with a document. In this manner, the image of the document can be adaptively processed by the system.