Column Inferencer
AssigneeKonica Minolta Laboratory U.S.A., Inc.
InventorDarrell Eugene Bellert
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A method for processing an electronic document (ED) to infer columns in the ED, where the ED comprises a plurality of characters. The method includes generating a mark-up version of the ED having text-layout attributes of the characters in the ED, where the characters are grouped into paragraphs based on the text-layout attributes, and each paragraph corresponds to a paragraph bounding box surrounding a corresponding paragraph, generating border pieces by initiating a pair of left scan and right scan from each paragraph bounding box to identify any adjacent paragraph bounding box, and generating, based at least on the border pieces, column borders for use in inferring the columns in the ED, where at least one column has a vertically aligned portion of the paragraphs.
Claims20
A method for processing an electronic document (ED) to infer columns in the ED, wherein the ED comprises a plurality of characters, the method comprising:
- generating a mark-up version of the ED comprising text-layout attributes of the characters in the ED, wherein
- the characters are grouped into a plurality of paragraphs based on the text-layout attributes, and
- each of the plurality of paragraphs corresponds to a paragraph bounding box surrounding a corresponding paragraph;
- generating a plurality of border pieces by initiating a pair of left scan and right scan from each of the plurality of paragraph bounding boxes to identify any adjacent paragraph bounding box;
- and
- generating, based at least on the plurality of border pieces, a plurality of column borders for use in inferring the columns in the ED,
- wherein at least one column comprises a vertically aligned portion of the plurality of paragraphs.
A non-transitory computer readable medium (CRM) storing computer readable program code for processing an electronic document (ED) to infer columns in the ED embodied therein, wherein the ED comprises a plurality of characters and the computer readable program code, when executed by a computer, comprises functionality for:
- generating a mark-up version of the ED comprising text-layout attributes of the characters in the ED, wherein
- the characters are grouped into a plurality of paragraphs based on the text-layout attributes, and
- each of the plurality of paragraphs corresponds to a paragraph bounding box surrounding a corresponding paragraph;
- generating a plurality of border pieces by initiating a pair of left scan and right scan from each of the plurality of paragraph bounding boxes to identify any adjacent paragraph bounding box;
- and
- generating, based at least on the plurality of border pieces, a plurality of column borders for use in inferring the columns in the ED,
- wherein at least one column comprises a vertically aligned portion of the plurality of paragraphs.
A system for processing an electronic document (ED) to infer columns in the ED, wherein the ED comprises a plurality of characters, the system comprising:
- a memory;
- and
- a computer processor connected to the memory that:
- generates a mark-up version of the ED comprising text-layout attributes of the characters in the ED, wherein
- the characters are grouped into a plurality of paragraphs based on the text-layout attributes, and
- each of the plurality of paragraphs corresponds to a paragraph bounding box surrounding a corresponding paragraph;
- generates a plurality of border pieces by initiating a pair of left scan and right scan from each of the plurality of paragraph bounding boxes to identify any adjacent paragraph bounding box;
- and
- generates, based at least on the plurality of border pieces, a plurality of column borders for use in inferring the columns in the ED,
- wherein at least one column comprises a vertically aligned portion of the plurality of paragraphs.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.