Abstract: A method is provided to synchronize media lists of several devices in a general architecture of devices by supplementing a media list of a first device with entries from a media list of a second device, even if the media associated with an entry is not applicable in the first device. This has the advantage that entries from the media list of the second device may be passed to a third device without the second and third device being connected to a network at the same time. Entries from media lists are considered to be associated with the same media, if the identification attributes, which may be more than one attribute, are equal. In that case, the additional attributes of the entry are supplemented according to merging rules that depend on the kind of attributes.

Abstract: Automatic interpretation processing operations, such as character recognition, require a binary image of information-bearing image elements and a background. Digital image data produced by scanning a color-containing document frequently contain many different colors so that a division into information-bearing image elements and background is not evident. The invention divides connected components (contiguous pixels with the same color) in the digital image into background and other connected components, whereafter the other connected components are allocated, in accordance with a predetermined criterion, either to the background or to a foreground. The foreground connected components are combined into information elements suitable for the automatic interpretation processing. The division into information-bearing image elements and background can be preceded by a color quantisation processing of the digital image data.

Abstract: A method, system and computer program product for entering physical documents into a digital back-end system are provided. The system includes at least one scanner for scanning a document and generating an associated document image file, a server including an intermediate document store, connected to the scanner for storing a document image file together with a document identification in a document file, and at least one input device connected to the server for entering an attribute file. The attributable file contains a set of document attributes accompanied by a document identification. The server includes a merging unit for checking whether a document identification of one of the attribute files corresponds to a document identification of one of the document files and, if so, the merger unit links the set of attributes to this document file.

Abstract: Automatic interpretation processing operations, such as character recognition, require a binary image of information-bearing image elements and a background. Digital image data produced by scanning a colour-containing document frequently contain many different colours so that a division into information-bearing image elements and background is not evident. The invention divides connected components (contiguous pixels with the same colour) in the digital image into background and other connected components, whereafter the other connected components are allocated, in accordance with a predetermined criterion, either to the background or to a foreground. The foreground connected components are combined into information elements suitable for the automatic interpretation processing. The division into information-bearing image elements and background can be preceded by a colour quantisation processing of the digital image data.