초록 ▼

A method for determining the relative equivalency or match between two or more character strings represented in an array of image data, including the steps of determining page orientation, isolating character strings from adjacent character strings, and establishing a set of boundaries or reference

A method for determining the relative equivalency or match between two or more character strings represented in an array of image data, including the steps of determining page orientation, isolating character strings from adjacent character strings, and establishing a set of boundaries or reference lines about the character strings. Subsequently, the boundaries are used to represent the character string images as word shape contours or signals which are generated from the imaginal data within the boundaries. The word shape contours are then compared using one of the described comparison methods to determine the relative equivalency or similarity of the contours.

대표청구항 ▼

A method of determining the equivalency of a plurality of symbol strings which form word objects within data defining an image to determine a relative measure of the similarity between the symbol strings, comprising the steps of: detecting a first discrete symbol string in the data defining the imag

A method of determining the equivalency of a plurality of symbol strings which form word objects within data defining an image to determine a relative measure of the similarity between the symbol strings, comprising the steps of: detecting a first discrete symbol string in the data defining the image, thereby isolating a word object represented by the first symbol string; deriving a first contour signal representative of a shape of the first symbol string; measuring a characteristic dimension for the first symbol string; detecting a second discrete symbol string in the data defining the image, thereby isolating a word object represented by the second symbol string; deriving a second contour signal representative of a shape of the second symbol string; measuring the characteristic dimension for the second symbol string; calculating a scaling ratio by dividing the characteristic dimension for the first symbol string by the characteristic dimension for the second symbol string; scaling, in two-dimensions, the second contour signal in accordance with the scaling ratio, to produce a new second contour signal for subsequent comparison to the first contour signal determining a difference signal representative of the difference between the first and second contour signals over a range in which both signals are defined; and evaluating the difference signal over a portion of the defined range to arrive at a difference measure indicative of the relative similarity between the first and second strings.