Abstract: The present invention refers to a method of collection and linking of positional data obtained by satellite localization and other data. At least one vehicle travels through substantially all streets of one or several continuous areas, with a satellite localization device continuously and automatically gathering positional data relating to the actual position of each vehicle and with one or several cameras taking pictures of individual adjacent buildings, substantially from a horizontal point of view. The postal addresses of the buildings contained in the taken pictures are determined, with at least the house numbers being determined by means of a house number sign on the buildings. For each individual building the positional data, data relating to the postal address and at least one digitized picture of the building are linked together and recorded in a database. This allows very accurate vehicle navigation systems but also many other applications not limited to vehicles.

Abstract: Unknown characters and objects are read opto-electronically and the read signals are digitized to generate a binary image of the characters and objects, said image being compared with binary reference images of known reference characters and reference objects stored in reference memories, the reference raster image(s) with the highest coincidence with the read characters or objects being selected to identify the read-in characters or objects. The stored binary reference images form a first binary comparison plane. At least one more binary comparison plane is provided, which consists of stored reference raster images generated by the binary imaging of characteristics or of characteristics parts of the known characters and objects.