Separating Touching Or Overlapping Characters Patents (Class 382/178)
  • Patent number: 11854287
    Abstract: A method, a computer program product, and a computer system compare images for content consistency. The method includes receiving a first image including a first document and a second image including a second document. The method includes performing a visual classification analysis on the first image and the second image. The visual classification analysis generates an overlap of the first image with the second image. The method includes determining whether a region of the overlap is indicative of a content inconsistency. As a result of the region of the overlap being indicative of a content inconsistency, the method includes performing a character recognition analysis on a first area of the first image and a second area of the second image corresponding to the region of the overlap to verify the content inconsistency.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 23, 2021
    Date of Patent: December 26, 2023
    Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
    Inventors: Li Juan Gao, Zhong Fang Yuan, Tong Liu, Ming Xia Shi, Ming Jin Chen
  • Patent number: 11790675
    Abstract: In one embodiment, a system receives an image depicting a line of text. The system segments the image into two or more fragment images. For each of the two or more fragment images, the system determines a first hypothesis to segment the fragment image into a first plurality of grapheme images and a first fragmentation confidence score. The system determines a second hypothesis to segment the fragment image into a second plurality of grapheme images and a second fragmentation confidence score. The system determines that the first fragmentation confidence score is greater than the second fragmentation confidence score. The system translates the first plurality of grapheme images defined by the first hypothesis to symbols. The system assembles the symbols of each fragment image to derive the line of text.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 30, 2020
    Date of Patent: October 17, 2023
    Assignee: ABBYY Development Inc.
    Inventor: Andrei Upshinskii
  • Patent number: 11615254
    Abstract: A method for sharing content is provided. An image of content is obtained. An address is generated based on the image using a set of predefined rules. The address is associated with the content. The content is provided to a computing device in response to the computing device accessing the address.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 19, 2019
    Date of Patent: March 28, 2023
    Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
    Inventors: Masahito Sugita, Tohru Hasegawa, Takahito Tashiro, Taihei Miyamoto
  • Patent number: 11501499
    Abstract: Aspects of the present disclosure involve a system comprising a computer-readable storage medium storing at least one program and a method for rendering virtual modifications to real-world environments depicted in image content. A reference surface is detected in a three-dimensional (3D) space captured within a camera feed produced by a camera of a computing device. An image mask is applied to the reference surface within the 3D space captured within the camera feed. A visual effect is applied to the image mask corresponding to the reference surface in the 3D space. The application of the visual effect to the image mask causes a modified surface to be rendered in presenting the camera feed on a display of the computing device.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 20, 2019
    Date of Patent: November 15, 2022
    Assignee: Snap Inc.
    Inventors: Kyle Goodrich, Samuel Edward Hare, Maxim Maximov Lazarov, Tony Mathew, Andrew James McPhee, Wentao Shang
  • Patent number: 11281930
    Abstract: Disclosed is an object detection method and a system thereof. The object detection method for detecting an object, the method comprising the steps of: extracting line segments from an image in which a detection target is displayed, by an object detection system, generating merged line segments on the basis of directionality of each of the extracted line segments, by the object detection system, specifying candidate outer lines corresponding to outer lines of the object on the basis of a line segment set including the generated merged line segments, by the object detection system; and specifying the candidate outer lines as the outer lines of the object on the basis of whether or not the specified candidate outer lines correspond to appearance attributes of the object, by the object detection system.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 1, 2020
    Date of Patent: March 22, 2022
    Assignee: Fingram Co., Ltd.
    Inventors: Young Cheul Wee, Young Hoon Ahn, Yang Seong Jin
  • Patent number: 10839245
    Abstract: A structured document analyzer that associates keys and values in structured documents based on key, value, and key-value container bounding boxes. A trained machine learning model analyzes images of structured documents to determine bounding boxes for keys, values, and key-value containers in the images with confidence scores for the classifications. For each image, duplicate bounding boxes are removed, and then a set of key-value containers are selected and sorted based on the confidence scores. For each key-value container, a best key and value are determined for the container based on overlap of the key and value bounding boxes with the container bounding box and the confidence scores. Optical character recognition may be performed on the image to determine text for the keys and values.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 25, 2019
    Date of Patent: November 17, 2020
    Assignee: Amazon Technologies, Inc.
    Inventors: Guneet Singh Dhillon, Vijay Mahadevan, Yuting Zhang, Meng Wang, Gangadhar Payyavula, Viet Cuong Nguyen, Rahul Bhotika, Stefano Soatto
  • Patent number: 10552699
    Abstract: A robust string text detection and recognition system is provided to improve the reading performance of sliding-window based OCR solutions (such as histogram of oriented gradient (HOG) OCR and convolutional neural network (CNN) OCR). A search algorithm is created that is robust enough to detect outliers and false detections. A general Text Search algorithm structure is created allows the specification of different constraints/assumptions to guide the search in multiple text lines detection and recognition.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 27, 2017
    Date of Patent: February 4, 2020
    Assignee: Datalogic USA, Inc.
    Inventors: Luis Goncalves, Filippo Mambelli, Flavio Poli
  • Patent number: 10346713
    Abstract: Disclosed are OCR-based system and method for recognizing a map image. The system for map recognition comprise a recognition unit for recognizing text on an inputted image by means of a text recognition technology; a search unit for searching, in a database comprising toponym data, for a toponym corresponding to the text; and a provision unit for providing map information comprising the toponym as a result of the recognition of the inputted image.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 29, 2016
    Date of Patent: July 9, 2019
    Assignee: NAVER Corporation
    Inventor: Sang Kyong Kim
  • Patent number: 10346949
    Abstract: Systems and methods for computationally efficient and precise transformation recovery using two image frames are provided. A key image frame and a tracked image frame are selected from a series of image frames, a plurality of points on the key image frame are selected, and the plurality of points are then projected onto the tracked image frame to produce a number of corresponding points. Then, for each corresponding point, a patch of pixels is defined centered on the corresponding point. Each pixel of the patch is reprojected back onto the key image frame to identify a reprojected pixel in that image frame. An intensity value for each reprojected pixel is determined and each patch is parameterized. A normal equation for each patch is determined and then solved for the transformation.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 30, 2017
    Date of Patent: July 9, 2019
    Inventors: Maksym Raitarovskyi, Mykhaylo Norel, Vitaliy Goncharuk
  • Patent number: 9996311
    Abstract: System, method, and computer product embodiments for efficiently casting interactively-controlled visual content displayed on a first display screen to a second display screen. In an embodiment, the computing device sends the visual content displayed on the first display screen to a multimedia device for displaying on the second display screen. Upon receipt of an instruction that visually manipulates how the visual content is displayed on the first display screen, the computing device generates a command representative of the received instruction. The command may specify a positional relationship between the center of the first display screen and the visual content displayed on the first display screen. Then, the computing devices sends the command to the multimedia device that causes the second display screen to display the visual content according to the positional relationship.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 15, 2016
    Date of Patent: June 12, 2018
    Assignee: ROKU, INC.
    Inventors: Gregory S. Gates, Harold Sun, Michael Chin-Ming Fu
  • Patent number: 9922263
    Abstract: The present disclosure relates to a system and a method for detection of touching characters in a media, characterized by segmentation of adjoining character spaces. In the very first step, an aspect ratio is calculated for each connected component. A candidate touching position of each character is determined by calculating a threshold aspect ratio for each character. Further, a candidate cut column is determined based on a relation between column pixel densities and corresponding length thereof the column in order to segment the touching characters at the candidate cut column.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 20, 2013
    Date of Patent: March 20, 2018
    Assignees: TATA CONSULTANCY SERVICES LIMITED, INDIAN STATISTICAL INSTITUTE
    Inventors: Tanushyam Chattopadhyay, Arpan Pal, Aniruddha Sinha, Utpal Garain
  • Patent number: 9911034
    Abstract: The current application is directed to methods and systems that convert document images, which contain Arabic text and text in other languages in which symbols are joined together to produce continuous words and portions of words, into corresponding electronic documents. In one implementation, a document-image-processing method and system to which the current application is directed employs numerous techniques and features that render efficiently computable an otherwise intractable or impractical document-image-to-electronic-document conversion. These techniques and features include transformation of text-image morphemes and words into feature symbols with associated parameters, efficiently identifying similar morphemes and words in an electronic store of standard-feature-symbol-encoded morphemes and words, and identifying candidate inter-character division points and corresponding traversal paths using the similar morphemes and words identified in the word store.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 18, 2013
    Date of Patent: March 6, 2018
    Assignee: ABBYY DEVELOPMENT LLC
    Inventor: Yury Georgievich Chulinin
  • Patent number: 9710157
    Abstract: For removing connective strokes, code identifies two connective points in a contiguous written input from a written input device. Each connective point is identified in response to a connective score for the connective point exceeding a connective threshold. The code further removes a connective stroke between the two connective points from the contiguous written input.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 12, 2015
    Date of Patent: July 18, 2017
    Assignee: Lenovo (Singapore) PTE. LTD.
    Inventors: Ming Qian, Jian Li, Song Wang, Jianbang Zhang
  • Patent number: 9614990
    Abstract: A font recognition section recognizes a font of characters depicted by character image data included in image data upon first character data corresponding to the character image data being acquired through character recognition. A font character recognition section compares the character image data to font character image data depicting characters in the recognized font and acquires second character data corresponding to font character image data when the font character image data matches the character image data. A recognized character determination section determines whether or not the first character data matches the second character data, and when determining that the first character data does not match the second character data, adopts the second character data, instead of the first character data, as recognized character data for the character image data.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 24, 2015
    Date of Patent: April 4, 2017
    Assignee: KYOCERA Document Solutions Inc.
    Inventor: Hironori Hayashi
  • Patent number: 9524031
    Abstract: The present invention relates to an apparatus for recognizing a gesture in a space. In accordance with an embodiment, a spatial gesture recognition apparatus includes a pattern formation unit for radiating light onto a surface of an object required to input a gesture in a virtual air bounce, and forming a predetermined pattern on the surface of the object, an image acquisition unit for acquiring a motion image of the object, and a processing unit for recognizing a gesture input by the object based on the pattern formed on the surface of the object using the acquired image. In this way, depending on the depths of an object required to input a gesture in a space, haptic feedbacks having different intensities are provided, and thus a user can precisely input his or her desired gesture.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 18, 2013
    Date of Patent: December 20, 2016
    Assignee: CENTER OF HUMAN-CENTERED INTERACTION FOR COEXISTENCE
    Inventors: Kiwon Yeom, Hyejin Han, Bumjae You
  • Patent number: 9417286
    Abstract: A system and method for image enhancement associated with scan generators is provided. For example, a source stimulates a device under test (DUT) at electrical interconnects. An internal clock of the DUT is synchronized with the scan rate of the source to reduce the noise of the output signal and enhance a resultant image. A phase adjustment is effected to further reduce the noise in the signal. The synchronization and the phase adjustment seek to ensure that the data is collected at uniform times relative to the reference signal and thereby reduce the noise introduced into the system, by such offsets. Post-scan processing increases the signal-to-noise ratio through averaging techniques. Using a pixel overlay algorithm the averaged data is transformed into a 2-D array and the image of the DUT reconstructed.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 13, 2014
    Date of Patent: August 16, 2016
    Assignee: The United States of America as represented by the Secretary of the Navy
    Inventors: Douglas J Martin, Adam Duncan, Fred Barsun
  • Patent number: 9268999
    Abstract: Provided is a table recognizing method, comprising: parsing and analyzing metadata information in an original fixed-layout document, and extracting basic elements on a page of the document; segmenting the basic elements, extracting segmented text lines on the page, and acquiring fragments; constructing an undirected graph with respect to each of the fragments; extracting an image on the page, detecting intersection points of horizontal lines and vertical lines, detecting an external bounding box of the intersection points, and taking whether the segmented text lines fall within the external bounding box as local relationship features; training a learning model according to the local relationship features, local features of the fragments, and neighborhood relationship features among the fragments, acquiring model parameters, and establishing a table recognizing model; and invoking the table recognizing model to perform table recognizing for the document, and acquiring a recognizing result.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 4, 2013
    Date of Patent: February 23, 2016
    Assignees: Peking University Founder Group Co., Ltd., Founder Apabi Technology Limited
    Inventors: Canhui Xu, Zhi Tang, Jianbo Xu, Xin Tao
  • Patent number: 9171218
    Abstract: An image processing apparatus includes a reception unit, a determination unit, a handwriting separation unit, an image generation unit, an image recognition unit, and an output unit. The reception unit receives handwriting information. The determination unit determines whether first handwriting indicated by first handwriting information and second handwriting indicated by second handwriting information overlap each other on the basis of the handwriting information. The handwriting separation unit separates the first handwriting from the second handwriting by changing a first/second handwriting position in the first/second handwriting information when the determination unit has determined that the first and second handwriting overlap each other. The image generation unit generates an image from handwriting information obtained through the separation, and information regarding handwriting that has been determined not to overlap other handwriting. The image recognition unit recognizes the generated image.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 24, 2012
    Date of Patent: October 27, 2015
    Assignee: FUJI XEROX CO., LTD.
    Inventors: Kosuke Maruyama, Shunichi Kimura
  • Patent number: 9141854
    Abstract: A method of recognizing and generating a structure of a table included in an image is provided. The method includes extracting lines forming the table from among connection components forming an image, determining line intersections by using crossing functions matched with the lines, determining one of a plurality of crossing models identified based on a plurality of crossing shapes, in correspondence with each of the line intersections, and generating data about the table, which includes at least one cell determined using the determined crossing model.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 4, 2014
    Date of Patent: September 22, 2015
    Assignees: Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., Seoul National University R&DB Foundation
    Inventors: Sang-ho Kim, Nam-ik Cho, Mu-sik Kwon, Beom-su Kim, Won-kyo Seo
  • Patent number: 9111140
    Abstract: A system and methods for progressive feature evaluation of an electronic document image to identify user supplied elements is disclosed. The system includes a controller in communication with a storage device configured to receive and accessibly store a generated plurality of candidate images. The controller is operable to analyze the electronic document image to identify a first feature set and a second feature set, wherein each of the first and second feature sets represents a different form feature, compare the first feature set to the second feature set, and define a third feature set based on the intersection of the first and second feature sets, wherein the third feature set represents the user provided elements.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 10, 2012
    Date of Patent: August 18, 2015
    Assignee: DST Technologies, Inc.
    Inventor: Kevin W. Stokes
  • Patent number: 9050794
    Abstract: An inkjet printing apparatus which performs printing by performing scanning using a print head has a problem in that quality of an image of a ruled line is degraded when ink is not ejected for a certain period of time. To address this problem, control is performed such that power for driving the print head for unit regions including pixels having a ruled-line attribute becomes higher than power for driving the print head for unit regions which do not include the pixels having the ruled-line attribute. By this, a high-quality ruled-line image may be printed.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 15, 2014
    Date of Patent: June 9, 2015
    Assignee: Canon Kabushiki Kaisha
    Inventors: Hiroaki Shirakawa, Kazuo Suzuki, Mitsutoshi Nagamura, Yuhei Oikawa, Yosuke Ishii
  • Patent number: 9053362
    Abstract: A city directory, having a listing of names and associated information of residents in a city (or similar location), is digitized. Zones of text having information not useful to users of the digitized directory are removed, and lines of information corresponding to residents are reconstructed, to make the digitized directory more easily accessed and reviewed.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 6, 2014
    Date of Patent: June 9, 2015
    Assignee: Ancestry.com Operations Inc.
    Inventors: Peter McCombs, Spence Koehler, Laryn Brown
  • Publication number: 20150086113
    Abstract: The present disclosure relates to a system and a method for detection of touching characters in a media, characterized by segmentation of adjoining character spaces. In the very first step, an aspect ratio is calculated for each connected component. A candidate touching position of each character is determined by calculating a threshold aspect ratio for each character. Further, a candidate cut column is determined based on a relation between column pixel densities and corresponding length thereof the column in order to segment the touching characters at the candidate cut column.
    Type: Application
    Filed: March 20, 2013
    Publication date: March 26, 2015
    Inventors: Tanushyam Chattopadhyay, Arpan Pal, Aniruddha Sinha, Utpal Garain
  • Patent number: 8989496
    Abstract: According to one embodiment, an electronic apparatus includes a display processor, and a correction calculator. The display processor is configured to display strokes corresponding to coordinates of loci of contact points on a display. The correction calculator is configured to calculate a correction direction and a correction quantity to correct a coordinate, by using a position of a first handwritten character recognizable from the strokes and a position of a second handwritten character recognizable from the strokes.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 19, 2012
    Date of Patent: March 24, 2015
    Assignee: Kabushiki Kaisha Toshiba
    Inventor: Shigeru Motoi
  • Patent number: 8922832
    Abstract: A printer driver for generating print job data to be transferred to a printer in response to a drawing instruction determines, based on combining condition, whether the received drawing instruction can be combined with another drawing instruction. If the printer driver determines that the received drawing instruction can be combined, the printer driver stores the received drawing instruction as intermediate data. If the printer driver determines that the received drawing instruction cannot be combined, the printer driver combines intermediate data of already stored drawing instructions into a single item of print job data and outputs the print job data to the printer. The combining condition is that the received drawing instruction meets all of three conditions.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 6, 2013
    Date of Patent: December 30, 2014
    Assignee: Canon Kabushiki Kaisha
    Inventors: Masanari Toda, Satoshi Hirakawa, Hiroshi Kikuchi
  • Patent number: 8917276
    Abstract: A graphics or image rendering system, such as a map image rendering system, receives image data from an image database in the form of vector data that defines various image objects, such as roads, geographical boundaries, etc., and textures defining text strings to be displayed on the image to provide, for example, labels for the image objects. The imaging rendering system renders the images such that the individual characters of the text strings are placed on the image following a multi-segmented or curved line. This rendering system enables text strings to be placed on a map image so that the text follows the center line of a curved or angled road or other image feature without knowing the specifics of the curvature of the line along which the text will be placed when creating the texture that stores the text string information.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 19, 2013
    Date of Patent: December 23, 2014
    Assignee: Google Inc.
    Inventor: Brian Cornell
  • Patent number: 8873861
    Abstract: In one embodiment, a method is disclosed for performing a video processing. The method can extract one or more common video segments. The method can select a common summarization segment based on a first summarization score. The method can extract one or more individual video segments in which the number of segments included therein is not more than a third threshold value that is less than a second threshold value. The method can select an individual summarization segment based on a second summarization score. In addition, the method can integrate the common summarization segment and the individual summarization segment to create the summary video.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 5, 2012
    Date of Patent: October 28, 2014
    Assignee: Kabushiki Kaisha Toshiba
    Inventors: Shigeru Motoi, Koji Yamamoto
  • Patent number: 8854691
    Abstract: An image processing apparatus extracts a line segment included in an image, and includes a density gradient direction determining section that determines a direction, in which density changes, of each processing unit composed of a predetermined number of pixels of an image, and an line segment extracting section that regards a couple of processing units whose density gradient direction are opposite each other as a processing unit pair and extracts a processing unit group including a plurality of processing unit pairs allocated in a row in a direction perpendicular to the density gradient directions as a line segment.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 2, 2012
    Date of Patent: October 7, 2014
    Assignee: Murata Machinery Ltd.
    Inventor: Nariyasu Kan
  • Patent number: 8842925
    Abstract: A method and apparatus for encoding an image is provided. An image coding unit, including a region that deviates from a boundary of a current picture, is divided to obtain a coding unit having a smaller size than the size of the image coding unit, and encoding is performed only in a region that does not deviate from the boundary of the current picture. A method and apparatus for decoding an image encoded by the method and apparatus for encoding an image is also provided.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 11, 2013
    Date of Patent: September 23, 2014
    Assignee: Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd.
    Inventor: Min-su Cheon
  • Patent number: 8787671
    Abstract: Disclosed is a character recognition preprocessing method and apparatus for correcting a nonlinear character string into a linear character string. A binarized character string region is divided into character regions on a character-by-character basis. Upper and lower feature points of each character region are derived, and an upper boundary line, which is a curve connecting the upper feature points of the character regions, and a lower boundary line, which is a curve connecting the lower feature points of the character regions, are generated by applying cubic spline interpolation. Nonlinearity is corrected through adaptive region enlargement by using the maximum horizontal length and the maximum height of the divided character regions.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 21, 2011
    Date of Patent: July 22, 2014
    Assignees: Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd, Industry Foundation of Chonnam National University
    Inventors: Hee-Bum Ahn, Jong-Hyun Park, Soo-Hyung Kim, Hyung-Jung Yang, Guee-Sang Lee
  • Patent number: 8761511
    Abstract: A computer implemented that, in various aspects, transforms a grayscale image into an OCR image by applying a combination of steps to the grayscale image is disclosed herein. The grayscale image may include one or more alphanumeric characters. The grayscale image may includes visual content displayed upon a computer screen, so that the grayscale image may have a resolution generally equivalent to a screen resolution of the computer screen prior to application of the combination of steps thereto. The resultant OCR image, in various implementations, is of sufficient resolution and quality that an OCR engine can generally recognize alphanumeric characters imbedded within the OCR image.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 15, 2009
    Date of Patent: June 24, 2014
    Inventor: F. Scott Deaver
  • Patent number: 8751214
    Abstract: An information processor includes: a character recognizing unit; a recognized character feature obtaining unit; a translation deciding unit; a translating unit; a translated result feature obtaining unit; an output deciding unit; an image receiving unit; and an output unit that, wherein the character recognizing unit recognizes a character in character image of the image data received by the image receiving unit, and the recognized character feature obtaining unit, in a case where a picture image other than the character is recognized, obtains a third feature related to a character included in the picture image.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 16, 2008
    Date of Patent: June 10, 2014
    Assignee: Fuji Xerox Co., Ltd.
    Inventor: Masahiro Kato
  • Patent number: 8666174
    Abstract: Systems, methods and computer program products on storage devices for shape clustering and applications in processing various documents, including an output of an optical character recognition (OCR) process. The output of an OCR process is classified into a plurality of clusters of clip images and a representative image for each cluster is generated to identify clusters whose clip images were incorrectly assigned character codes by the OCR process.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 17, 2012
    Date of Patent: March 4, 2014
    Assignee: Google Inc.
    Inventors: Luc Vincent, Raymond W. Smith
  • Patent number: 8610951
    Abstract: Before page description data are input to a raster image processor (RIPa) that plots an overprint of a shading object in process colors in the nonzero overprint mode, the page description data are converted into robustized page description data wherein minimum values of process colors are replaced with small values which are not of 0. The robustized page description data are input to the RIPa.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 29, 2010
    Date of Patent: December 17, 2013
    Assignee: FUJIFILM Corporation
    Inventor: Yasuharu Aoki
  • Patent number: 8594431
    Abstract: A method and system for recognizing a character affected by a noise or an obstruction is disclosed. After receiving an image with characters, a character being affected by a noise or an obstruction is determined. Then, areas in the character where the noise or obstruction affected are precisely located. Templates representing every possible character in the image are updated by removing equivalent areas to the areas in the character being affected by the noise or obstruction. Then, the character is classified in a template among the updated templates by finding the template having the highest number of matching pixels with the character.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 14, 2012
    Date of Patent: November 26, 2013
    Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
    Inventors: Ami Ben-Horesh, Amir Geva, Eugeniusz Walach
  • Patent number: 8571270
    Abstract: An image processing apparatus is provided that includes a character chopper component that segments words into individual characters in a bitmap of a textual image undergoing an OCR process. The Character chopper component is configured to produce a set of (possibly curved) chop-lines which divide a bitmap of any given word into its individual character or glyph candidates. Cases where an input bitmap contains two separate words are handled by marking a place where those words should be split. The character segmentation algorithm computes the set of vertically oriented, curved chop-lines by considering glyph and background colors in a given word bitmap. The set is filtered afterwards using various heuristics, in order to preserve those lines that indeed do separate a word's glyphs and minimize the number of those that do not.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 10, 2010
    Date of Patent: October 29, 2013
    Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
    Inventor: Djordje Nijemcevic
  • Patent number: 8553294
    Abstract: When generating outline data, the contour pixels of the binarized image data are first extracted. Based on the extracted contour pixels, the contour of the image data is approximated to a straight line. In the straight-line approximation process, the distance between adjacent contour pixels among the extracted contour pixels is calculated. It is determined based on the result of the comparison between the length of the first straight line and the length of the second straight line whether the first straight line is used as a contour of the image data. The first straight line connects the first contour pixel and the second contour pixel adjacent to the first contour pixel. The second straight line connects the second contour pixel and the third contour pixel adjacent to the second contour pixel.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 16, 2009
    Date of Patent: October 8, 2013
    Assignee: Konica Minolta Business Technologies, Inc.
    Inventors: Toshiki Honma, Koji Usui
  • Patent number: 8547115
    Abstract: A touch sensing system including a touch input interface and a capacitance sensing circuit is provided. The touch input interface includes a plurality of sensing capacitors for outputting a capacitance under test and a reference capacitance. The capacitance sensing circuit includes a first sensing channel, a second sensing channel, and a difference comparing unit. During a first period of the sensing period, the first sensing channel senses the capacitance under test, and the second sensing channel senses the reference capacitance. During a second period of the sensing period, the first sensing channel senses the reference capacitance, and the second sensing channel senses the capacitance under test. The difference comparing unit outputs a difference according to the capacitance under test and the reference capacitance. Additionally, a capacitance sensing method is also provided.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 3, 2011
    Date of Patent: October 1, 2013
    Assignee: Novatek Microelectronics Corp.
    Inventors: Ching-Chun Lin, Wing-Kai Tang, Ching-Ho Hung, Tsen-Wei Chang, Yi-Liang Lin, Jiun-Jie Tsai
  • Patent number: 8548246
    Abstract: A method and system for preprocessing an image, wherein the image includes a plurality of columns, or regions, of text is disclosed. A plurality of components associated with the text is determined. On determining the plurality of components, a line height and a column spacing is determined for the components. The components are then associated with a column based on the line height and the column spacing. A set of characteristic parameters are calculated for each column and the plurality of components of each column are merged based on the characteristic parameters to form sub-words and words. A first plurality of words and/or subwords is merged and processed as a first region and a second plurality of words and/or subwords is merged and processed as a second region wherein at least a portion of the second region vertically overlaps at least a portion of the first region.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 9, 2012
    Date of Patent: October 1, 2013
    Assignee: King Abdulaziz City for Science & Technology (KACST)
    Inventors: Hussein Khalid Al-Omari, Mohammad Sulaiman Khorsheed
  • Patent number: 8532386
    Abstract: An electronic document producing device has a correcting unit for correcting distortion of a first image to obtain a correction image, and a character recognition unit for executing character recognition processing on a plurality of character images contained in the correction image to obtain text data. The device also has a unit for finding a base line of each character row in the first image, and a unit for finding a relative position from the base line in regard to each character image in the first image. The device also includes a producing unit for producing an electronic document including the text data and the first image, wherein a position of the text data is described based on the relative position from the base line.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 18, 2009
    Date of Patent: September 10, 2013
    Assignee: Canon Kabushiki Kaisha
    Inventors: Ichiro Umeda, Tetsuomi Tanaka
  • Patent number: 8520948
    Abstract: An image processing apparatus for performing image processing for a plurality of band areas obtained by dividing image data is provided. The apparatus includes a dividing unit configured to divide the image data such that each of the plurality of band areas has an area overlapping an adjacent band area, and an image processing unit configured to perform the image processing for the band areas with respect to each of a plurality of planes that constitute the image data. A processing range within a band area used in the image processing by the image processing unit differs between at least two planes among the plurality of planes.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 21, 2011
    Date of Patent: August 27, 2013
    Assignee: Canon Kabushiki Kaisha
    Inventor: Tadayuki Ito
  • Patent number: 8503732
    Abstract: An image generating device and a method thereof are disclosed in the present invention. The image generating device and method may find out true motion for static text strings. The image generating device and method detect static text angles from consecutive frames and use a 3D-static text filter to recover correct motion vector fields. After our Static Text Detector fixing, the static text strings like subtitles can get more accurate motion vector and improve video quality.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 16, 2009
    Date of Patent: August 6, 2013
    Assignee: Silicon Integrated Systems Corp.
    Inventors: Hung Wei Wu, Chih-Yu Chang
  • Patent number: 8478028
    Abstract: Method for converting at least one image of a first spectrum into an image of a second spectrum, comprising: —recording at least one first-spectrum reference image (NRI) of at least one reference scene (RS) with a first-spectrum recording apparatus (1), the first-spectrum reference image (NRI) comprising first image portions with corresponding first-spectrum sensor reference data (b1, b2); —providing corresponding second-spectrum reference information (RGB); —providing at least one set of reference data (T1, T2) from at least part of the first-spectrum sensor reference data (b1, b2) relating to the reference scene (RS), and at least a corresponding part of the second-spectrum information (RGB) relating to that reference scene (RS); —providing at least one target first-spectrum image (NTI) or target second-spectrum image; and —converting each target first-spectrum image (NTI) or target second-spectrum image into a respective second-spectrum image (CI) or first-spectrum image, respectively, using the set of ref
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 3, 2007
    Date of Patent: July 2, 2013
    Assignee: Nederlandse Organisatie voor toegepast-natuurwetenschappelijk onderzoek TNO
    Inventors: Maarten Andreas Hogervorst, Alexander Toet, Frank Leonard Kooi
  • Patent number: 8472719
    Abstract: A method of identifying stricken-out characters in handwriting, comprising parsing a scanned image into regions and objects, defining objects containing handwritten characters, applying structural or feature classifiers for primary character recognition, applying one or more supplemental feature classifiers preliminarily trained by strike-out characters, and identifying a stricken-out character if any. The stricken-out character may be further examined by special procedures, either automated or manual.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 22, 2003
    Date of Patent: June 25, 2013
    Assignee: ABBYY Software Ltd.
    Inventors: Diar Tuganbaev, Dmitri Deriaguine
  • Patent number: 8467607
    Abstract: Methods and systems for processing an image to create an object model are disclosed. In accordance with one embodiment, each segment of the image is assigned to a respective bin of a bounding box. For each bin of the bounding box, the value of a feature for the bin is computed based on the values of that feature for each of the segments assigned to the bin. An object model is then created based on the values of the feature for the bin.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 21, 2011
    Date of Patent: June 18, 2013
    Assignee: Google Inc.
    Inventors: Alexander T. Toshev, Jay Yagnik, Vivek Kwatra
  • Patent number: 8467566
    Abstract: A method is provided for authenticating an image printed at a predefined print resolution or in accordance with a predetermined print grid. The method includes the steps of scanning the image to produce digital data and segmenting the data into first and second groups corresponding, respectively, to first and second predefined sections of the image. Next, a determination is made concerning the anticipated spatial position of select columns of digital data from each of the first and second groups of data. By examining the data, differences may be identified between the anticipated and actual spatial position of the columns, to determine the authenticity of the image. The identified differences which may include (i) a rotary/linear displacement in the actual spatial position of the select columns. (ii) a change in beat frequency between sections of the image, and/or (iii) a phase shift in a beat frequency.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 6, 2005
    Date of Patent: June 18, 2013
    Assignee: Pitney Bowes Inc.
    Inventor: Frederick W. Ryan, Jr.
  • Patent number: 8457443
    Abstract: To handle static text and logos in stabilized images without destabilizing the static text and logos, a method of handling overlay subpictures in stabilized images includes separating an existing overlay subpicture from an input image to generate a separated overlay subpicture and a separated input image. The separated input image is stabilized to form a stabilized image. The separated overlay subpicture is then merged with the stabilized image to obtain an output image.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 22, 2011
    Date of Patent: June 4, 2013
    Assignee: CyberLink Corp.
    Inventor: Chia-Chen Kuo
  • Patent number: 8416244
    Abstract: A graphics or image rendering system, such as a map image rendering system, receives image data from an image database in the form of vector data that defines various image objects, such as roads, geographical boundaries, etc., and textures defining text strings to be displayed on the image to provide, for example, labels for the image objects. The imaging rendering system renders the images such that the individual characters of the text strings are placed on the image following a multi-segmented or curved line.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 26, 2011
    Date of Patent: April 9, 2013
    Assignee: Google Inc.
    Inventor: Brian Cornell
  • Patent number: 8391602
    Abstract: Systems and methods for character recognition by performing lateral view-based analysis on the character data and generating a feature vector based on the lateral view-based analysis.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 8, 2010
    Date of Patent: March 5, 2013
    Assignee: University of Calcutta
    Inventors: Nabendu Chaki, Soharab Hossain Shaikh
  • Patent number: 8384917
    Abstract: A method, system, and computer program product for font reproduction in electronic documents are provided. The method includes: receiving an image of a printed document; extracting pairs of consecutive characters from the image of the printed document; storing the extracted pairs as images of the characters; and reproducing the printed document as an electronic document with text of overlapping extracted character pair images. Extracting pairs of consecutive characters includes extracting adjacent horizontal characters, extracting spaced horizontal characters, and extracting spaced vertical characters. Reproducing the printed document as an electronic document includes reproducing the spacing between words and between lines using the spaced horizontal characters and the spaced vertical characters as anchors in the reproduced document.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 15, 2010
    Date of Patent: February 26, 2013
    Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
    Inventor: Asaf Tzadok