Abstract: A mask process such as smoothing of a graphic or a character drawn into a bit pattern is performed by using only SHIFT, logical NOT, AND, OR operations of bit strings, rather than using conditional branch instructions in the form of “IF THEN ELSE” and “SWITCH” statements that lead to undesirable reduction of processing speed. This results in a substantial increase of the processing speed. Further, in order to process an image that is wider than a bus width or a register length at high speed, adjacent patterns of an original image, which are not necessarily used for a logical operation, are loaded onto left and right sides of a processing object, to form a processing unit for use in a logical operation.

Abstract: Character normalization is accomplished using a scaling program. Data input to a scaling program are character images and character parameters (height of result buffer frame, character height, character width and character location), and parameters calculated for scaling (the size of a normalized portion to be output; and the top and bottom and the left and right hand spaces of a normalization pattern to be output). In the present invention, normalization is performed by adjusting the parameters, without especially changing the processing flow. A threshold value is provided in accordance with the size and the location of an input character in order to change a calculation method for parameters that are to be transmitted to the scaling program. Since the values at the boundary of the threshold value are continuous, no discontinuity appears in a resultant normalized image that covers the range from small characters to large characters, and seamless normalization is therefore accomplished.

Abstract: OCR processing involves: acquisition of images from image capturing devices; determination of location/size/style for each character; normalization; smoothing for large corners; smoothing by the deletion of individual protruding and extraneous dots; extraction of features; pattern matching; automatic error correction using a word dictionary; and output of recognition results.In the present invention, high speed software processes accomplish smoothing large corners and deletion of individual protruding and extraneous dots. In this software processing, the smoothing process is performed by shifting bit rows and using only the logical operators NOT, AND, and OR; not used are the often employed conventional conditional branch commands, such as the "if then else" and "switch" statements. This smoothing method (using only NOT, AND, and OR) contributes to a substantial reduction in the processing speed.