The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Jul. 13, 1999
Filed:
Aug. 01, 1996
Atul K Chhabra, White Plains, NY (US);
Vishal Misra, Amherst, MA (US);
Surekha Surya, Dallas, TX (US);
NYNEX Science & Technology, Inc., White Plains, NY (US);
Abstract
There is provided a method for detecting horizontal and vertical lines of an encoded run length image to identify cells of the image that are formed by the lines. Initially, the method comprises the steps of filtering excess details, such as text, from the image and grouping a portion of the image for analysis. A top profile of the image is generated and, then, points along the top profile are determined where substantial changes in the profile position occur. A horizontal section of the top profile which corresponds to a line completely visible from the top is then extracted from between the points. By repeating the above steps, each horizontal line of the image is detected and extracted from the image. In addition, in order to detect the vertical lines of the image, the image is simply rotated 90.degree. and processed with the vertical lines being positioned horizontally. By identifying the horizontal and vertical lines of the image, the cells of the original image may be identified, and the contents of each cell may be processed by optical character recognition techniques and the like.