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:
Nov. 08, 2016
Filed:
Sep. 18, 2013
Nihon Yamamura Glass Co., Ltd., Amagasaki-shi, Hyogo, JP;
Daisuke Kobayashi, Amagasaki, JP;
Naohiro Tanaka, Amagasaki, JP;
NIHON YAMAMURA GLASS CO., LTD., Amagasaki-Shi, Hyogo, JP;
Abstract
A character readerfor reading and recognizing a character displayed at a predetermined height position on the outer peripheral surface of a plurality of cylindrical containers (for example, bottles BT), the character reader includes: a rotary drive mechanismtofor supporting the cylindrical container to rotate the cylindrical container around the central axis thereof; a camerapositioned to face the cylindrical container so that a character displayed on the outer peripheral surface of the cylindrical container is captured within the visual field; and an image processing device for acquiring an image at the height position where the character is displayed over an angular range more than one rotation of the cylindrical container by controlling the imaging operation of the camera, thereby executing recognition processing. The image processing device includes: a search means for searching an image portion including all characters from the acquired image; a character recognition means for recognizing a character to be recognized by collating the image of a character to be recognized included in the image portion searched by the search means with the model images of a plurality of types of characters; and an output means for outputting a recognition result recognized by the character recognition means for each cylindrical container.