US 6,665,422 B1Granted

Method and device for recognizing distribution data on postal packets

AssigneeSiemens Aktiengesellchaft

InventorsGert Seidel, Göran Keil

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Abstract

The present invention pertains to a method and device for recognizing distribution data on postal packets, small packages or journals during the automatic mail processing, especially to systems by which the automatic handwritten adress recognition process is supplemented and improved by video coding. The distribution data are written on various backgrounds, including pattern backgrounds. After a first unsuccessful optical character recognition attempt, the complete surface of the postal packet is displayed with a grid on a videocoding-screen. Once a picture segment has been selected which contains a larger part of the distribution data, the operator submits an image portion containing said picture segment and the adjacent areas to a new optical character assessment, while making sure that all the data area is included in the image portion. If the second optical character recognition attempt does not succeed, the image portion is reoriented as many times as required for the final video coding to appear on the screen.

Claims7

Dependent claims

A method of recognizing distribution information on mail items, in which an image of a surface of each mail item containing the distribution information is obtained and evaluated by means of automatic OCR recognition methods and video coding, the method comprising:

a) performing a first automatic search of a region of interest (ROI), the ROI being a region of the mail item containing the distribution information, the search including determining an orientation of the distribution information and performing a first automatic OCR recognition;
b) displaying an entire image of the surface containing the distribution information on a video-coder monitor if the first automatic OCR recognition yields an ambiguous result;
c) dividing the image on the video-coder monitor into image segments with a grid;
d) manually selecting the image segment from the displayed image that contains a portion of the ROI via a single keystroke;
e) performing a second automatic search of a new region containing the distribution information, where the new region is designated by the manually selected image segment and includes marginal regions of segments adjacent to the manually selected image segment such that the new region encompasses the distribution information;
and
f) performing a second automatic OCR evaluation of the new region containing the distribution information.

4 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.