Abstract: An integrated system for image processing of documents generated in shipping transactions includes a central transaction processing facility, which receives images of shipping transaction documents. The document images may be captured by scanners at a plurality of remote stations or they may be telefaxed directly to the processing facility by the individual shippers. A central shipping transaction database is maintained on a host computer, for example, along with appropriate applications for processing the transaction data and invoicing the transactions. The system includes a plurality of image processing stations, at which key operators may view the images of shipping documents according to predetermined workflow queues and, based on the images of the documents, enter transaction data into the shipping transaction database. The system allows for printing of transaction invoices from the data in the database along with a hard copy of any shipping document images which are to accompany the invoices.

Abstract: A system for finding and reading a bar code, arbitrarily located on a document, working from an electronic image of the document represented by a pixel array such as generated by a document scanner. A one-dimensional texture analysis is performed in the scanning direction by defining a pattern of test segments and searching for characteristic ranges of transistions within those test segments. If a horizontal test segment pattern fails to locate a bar code region, a test segment pattern skewed with respect to the horizontal is applied. If test patterns skewed with respect to the horizontal fail to locate a bar code region, then a state-transition analysis is applied in the direction perpendicular to the scan direction and in directions skewed with respect to that perpendicular to search for a terminal symbol characterizing the bar code.