Abstract: Before performing additive manufacturing of an article to be formed, a first scale plate is scanned in a first scanning speed so that a trace of the electron beam is depicted. An electric current value through a focusing coil with which the trace of the electron beam becomes narrowest is found and set as a melting electric current value. Then, a second scale plate is scanned similarly in the first scanning speed so that a trace of the electron beam is depicted. An electric current value through the focusing coil with which the trace of the electron beam cannot be seen is found and set as a preheating focusing electric current value. Dispersed metal powder is scanned with electron beam of the preheating electric current value as set before in a second scanning speed 20 to 30 times of the first scanning speed. Thereafter, the additive manufacturing is performed.

Abstract: An address recognition apparatus and method is disclosed in which keyword and/or postal code detection is initially performed in order to limit the number of address dictionaries needed for final address detection. According to one embodiment, detected keywords are associated with property codes which may be designated for city names, street names, etc. The address dictionary memory is or can be separated into a plurality of segments, particular ones of which are selected on the basis of the property code of a given keyword.

Abstract: A word recognization system compares an input word with words stored in a dictionary memory. The comparison is made on a basis of the number of letters in the input word in combination with the first few letters in the word. The first level of selection is made on a basis of the number of letters in the input word. The memory locations of words are chain linked on a basis of the letters at the head of the word so that a reading of one memory location automatically leads to the reading of another memory location responsive to a comparison of the first few letters.

Abstract: An apparatus for recognizing characters with high recognition accuracy. The width of a character is measured, and the character is normalized in the direction of height only when the measured width is smaller than a predetermined value and in the direction of both height and width irrespective of the measured width. The normalized characters are compared and collated with a reference, and a category of the reference having the higher degree of coincidence is provided as a recognition result.

Abstract: A character recognition circuit slices the character signal received from an optical scanner and counts a number of black bits at multiple levels. The number of black bits are normalized in accordance with the character row length. A pair of level judging circuits responds to the normalized black bits at the respective multiple levels to derive slicing levels for both the character and the background. Responsive thereto a binary signal is produced in accordance with the slice level. Thus, the differences in the background signals do not have an effect upon the recognization of the character signals.

Abstract: A character segmenting apparatus has an optical scanner for scanning the surface of an article of mail. The scan is in a direction which is substantially perpendicular to the direction of the relative movement between the optical scanner and the mail article. The scan generates a pattern signal which is then recurrsively compressed and updated in the width of a black picture element contained in the pattern signal. A character segmenting signal is produced when no black picture element exists in a portion of the pattern signal, delivered from the optical scanner, which corresponds to the black picture element contained in the compressed pattern signal. Size and position information of a whole segmented character is developed in response to the character segmenting signal.

Abstract: A postal code distinguishing apparatus extracts characters from an address code appearing on a mail article, forms words from the extracted characters, stores in a memory a set of key words (i.e., "ATTN", "TEL", "P.O. BOS", etc.) which indicate that a numeric code on the same line is not a postal code, compares the key words with the extracted words, and sorts the mail articles accordingly. In this manner, the various lines of the address code are "eliminated" such that the numeric code on the remaining line is automatically read out as the postal code.

Abstract: A binary pattern signal producing apparatus for optical character recognition comprises a pre-scanning section for determining an area containing the information to be scanned, a scanning apparatus for producing a signal in accordance with the luminance of the scanning area, an automatic gain control circuit for controlling the level of the information signal in accordance with the level of a portion of the same information signal representing less than the entire scanned area, and a comparison circuit responsive to the output of the automatic gain control circuit for generating the binary pattern signal. In addition to or in place of a gate circuit which is used to provide only a portion of the information signal to the gain control terminal of the automatic gain control device, the apparatus may include noise eliminating circuitry for removing pulsive noise from the gain control signal.

Abstract: Responsive to each character field, a word recognition apparatus separates a first train of characters .alpha..sub.1, .alpha..sub.2, . . . .alpha..sub.n, which are regarded as characters of a first kind, and a second train of characters .beta..sub.1, .beta..sub.2, . . . .beta..sub.n, which are regarded as characters of second kind. First and second registers store the first and second train of characters, respectively. A first storage device stores a first kind of intercharacter distance of the first kind of characters and a second storage device stores a second kind of intercharacter distance of the second kind of characters. A third storage device stores a dictionary of words, which is compared with the output character train of the character reader. The first and second kinds of intercharacter distances in the dictionary words are compared with items in the contents of the first and second registers.