Local Scale, Rotation and Position Invariant Word Detection for Optical Character Recognition

A system comprising:

• one or more processors;
• a controller stored on a memory and executable by the one or more processors, the controller configured to receive an input image;
• a word detection engine configured to generate progressively blurred images from the input image, to detect blobs in the blurred images, to output ellipses over the blobs and to detect a word in the input image based on the ellipses;
• a word orientation engine configured to orient and normalize the word;
• and
• an optical character recognition (OCR) engine configured to perform optical character recognition on the word and output text associated with the word.

A computer program product comprising a computer useable medium including a computer readable program, wherein the computer readable program when executed on a computer causes the computer to:

• receive an input image;
• generate progressively blurred images from the input image;
• detect blobs in the blurred images;
• output ellipses over the blobs;
• detect a word in the input image based on the ellipses;
• orient and normalize the word;
• perform optical character recognition on the word;
• and
• output text associated with the word.