JPH0345430B2 - - Google Patents

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION [Field of Application of the Invention] The present invention relates to an optical character reading device that optically reads and recognizes characters or symbols written or printed on a form.

[Background of the invention]

Forms processed by optical character readers can be roughly divided into small document-type forms with about 30 characters, and page-type forms of A5 size or larger that mainly contain handwritten characters. Conventionally, there were two types of machines: a high-speed machine for document processing and a medium-low speed machine for page processing.
It was necessary to prepare a model.

[Purpose of the invention]

An object of the present invention is to provide an optical character reading device that can process both forms that use a small number of character types and can be processed at high speed, and forms that use many character types and require slow processing.

[Summary of the invention]

A feature of the present invention is that the conveyance speed of the form is changed depending on the number of types of characters or symbols written or printed on the form, and by changing the conveyance speed, patterns read at different scanning intervals can be recognized. It's because I did it.

[Embodiments of the invention]

An embodiment of the present invention will be described in detail below with reference to FIGS. 1 and 2. FIG. 1 is a diagram showing the configuration of an optical character reading device, and FIG. 2 is a diagram for explaining the processing of the recognition device.

In FIG. 1, a form 2 is conveyed by a form conveyance mechanism 1. As shown in FIG. The form conveying mechanism 1 is driven by a signal from a speed control circuit 10, and the speed is suitably controlled, for example, by controlling the rotational speed of a pulse motor by changing the pulse cycle. In this embodiment, two-speed switching between high speed and low speed is performed.

When the form 2 reaches an optical reading section composed of a light emitting source 3 and a light receiving element 4, it is optically scanned by the light emitting source 3, and the reflected light from the form 2 is transmitted to the light receiving element 4.
The light is incident on the light receiving element 4, and a character pattern on the form is imaged on the light receiving element 4. By conveying the form 2, characters on the form are sequentially imaged on the light receiving element 4. As the light receiving element 4, for example, a one-dimensional semiconductor CCD sensor or the like is applied.

The light receiving element 4 converts the sequentially imaged character patterns into electrical signals and outputs them to the binarization circuit 5. 2
The value conversion circuit 5 converts the electrical signal into a binary signal of "1" and "0" according to a predetermined threshold level, and outputs it to the storage circuit 6. The memory circuit 6 stores 2 character patterns.
It is stored as a value signal, and an IC memory or the like is applied, for example.

The recognition device 7 cuts out each character pattern from the memory circuit 6, takes it in, compares it with the standard character pattern stored in the dictionary file A or B, and outputs the matched standard character pattern as a recognition result. This recognition result is output to an external storage device such as a magnetic tape storage device or a magnetic disk storage device, or to a host device such as a central processing unit via a communication line.

The speed changeover switch 9 instructs the changeover of the speed of the form transport mechanism 1 and the dictionary file of the recognition device 7, and may be, for example, a manual switch or a keyboard. Speed selector switch 9 is high speed,
A low speed switch status signal is output to the restraint device 8. The control device 8 reads the high speed and low speed switch state signals and outputs them as speed information to the recognition device 7 and the speed control circuit 10. The speed control circuit 10 switches the driving speed of the form transport mechanism 1 based on the speed information.
The recognition device 7 switches between a high-speed dictionary file A and a low-speed dictionary file B in accordance with speed information to perform high-speed recognition or low-speed recognition.

Next, the operation of high-speed recognition and low-speed recognition in the recognition device 7 will be explained with reference to FIG.

The character pattern 12 is a character written or printed on a form to be read. Reference numeral 13 indicates scanning lines when the form 2 is run at a low speed, and the scanning line interval in this case is small. The number of character patterns read by this low-speed scanning is 15. The low speed input pattern 15 is compared with a low speed standard pattern 16 stored in a low speed dictionary file B prepared in advance. On the other hand, when the form 2 is scanned at high speed, the scanning lines are as shown by 14, and the scanning line intervals are large. The character pattern read by this high-speed scanning is 17, which has less binary information than the low-speed character pattern 15. The high-speed input pattern 17 is compared with a high-speed standard pattern 18 stored in a high-speed dictionary file A prepared in advance.

Since the high-speed input pattern 17 and the high-speed standard pattern 18 have less binary information, they require fewer matching bits and can be recognized at high speed. High-speed recognition limits the types of characters, for example, only numbers. On the other hand, since the low-speed input pattern 15 and the low-speed standard pattern 16 have a large amount of binary information, the number of matching bits increases, and the reading accuracy improves. Therefore, low-speed recognition can increase the number of character types.

As described above, according to this embodiment, it is possible to perform high-speed recognition processing for forms with a small number of character types and low-speed recognition processing for forms with many character types using a single device.

In the above explanation, manual switches, keyboards, and other input means are used as speed switching means, but by having the device memorize a format control program in advance, high-speed and low-speed switching can be performed on a form-by-form, line-by-line, and field-by-field basis. It is also easily possible to do so.

Further, it is easily possible to change the speed to three or more speeds depending on the number of character types used.

Furthermore, in the embodiment described above, dictionaries for the recognition device are prepared according to the document conveyance speed, but it is also possible to implement the recognition device using the same dictionary. For example, high-speed scanning line 1
If the pitch of 4 is twice the pitch of the low-speed scanning lines 13, the high-speed input pattern 17 can be recognized by matching it with the low-speed standard pattern 16 in skips of one scan. In this way, it can be realized using only the low-speed standard pattern.

〔Effect of the invention〕

According to the present invention, it is possible to perform high-speed recognition processing of forms with few character types and low-speed recognition processing of forms with many character types with a single device.

[Brief explanation of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram of the structure of an optical character reading device according to an embodiment of the present invention, and FIG. 2 is a diagram for explaining recognition processing at high speed and low speed. DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1... Form transport mechanism, 2... Form, 3... Light emitting source, 4... Light receiving element, 5... Binarization circuit, 6...
Memory circuit, 7... Recognition device, A... High speed dictionary file, B... Low speed dictionary file, 8... Control device, 9... Speed changeover switch, 10... Speed control circuit, 12... Character pattern , 13...Low speed scanning line, 14...High speed scanning line, 15...Low speed input pattern, 16...Low speed standard pattern, 17...
High speed input pattern, 18...Standard pattern for high speed.

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. A form in which characters or symbols are written or printed is conveyed at a constant speed, the form is optically scanned, the reflected light is received, and the received reflected light is converted into an electrical signal. In an optical character reader, which recognizes a pattern by converting it into a binary signal and comparing the reading pattern represented by the binary signal with a standard pattern prepared in advance, the character or symbol written or printed on a form can be recognized. A means for changing the transport speed of forms according to the number of types, a plurality of dictionary files for recognizing patterns read at different scanning intervals by changing the transport speed, and selecting the dictionary file according to the transport speed. What is claimed is: 1. An optical character reading device comprising recognition means for recognizing a pattern read by the user. 2 The means for changing the conveyance speed of the form is a format control that is pre-memorized in the device.
The optical character reading device according to claim 1, characterized in that it is controlled by a program. 3. The optical character reading device according to claim 1, wherein the means for changing the conveyance speed of the form controls the speed by inputting a state signal of a manual switch. 4. The optical character reading device according to claim 1, wherein the means for changing the conveyance speed of the form controls the speed based on an input signal from a keyboard.