Reader with optical character recognition

An imaging-based reader for reading a target comprising:

• a) an imaging and decoding system for imaging one or more standard targets having thereon OCR characters, the imaging and decoding system including focusing optics and a sensor array, the focusing optics defining a field of view for focusing reflected illumination from an image onto the sensor array;
• b) a processor including a memory for storing a pattern definition determined from the previously imaged OCR characters and comparing the pattern definition determined from the previously imaged OCR characters to characters in a present image to determine a character content of the present image;
• wherein the pattern definition of characters defines a string of characters;
• and
• wherein the pattern definition is a regular expression that is a set of characters specifying a make up of the string to enable the processor to readily determine an input string in a target image, regular expression is a
• set of characters that specify a pattern.

A method of reading a target comprising:

• a) providing an imaging and decoding system for imaging a target image, the imaging and decoding system including focusing optics and a sensor array, the focusing optics defining a field of view for focusing reflected illumination from the target image onto the sensor array;
• b) imaging one or more standard targets having easily recognized characters to determine a character format that includes a definition for defining the format of a string of characters that summarizes common attributes of a group of strings each describable with said format, wherein said common attributes includes character type at one or more locations in any string belonging to said group of strings and wherein the character type includes at least one of an alphabet, a numerical symbol, and a special character;
• c) imaging a target having characters to be decoded;
• and
• d) using the character format to decode characters by fitting the characters to be decoded into the character format previously determined from the one or more standard targets prior to imaging of the target document.

Apparatus for reading a target comprising:

• a) imaging means for imaging a target and possibly decoding a target bar code, said imaging means including focusing optics and a sensor array and processing electronics for processing signals from the sensor array, the focusing optics defining a field of view and focusing reflected illumination from the target bar code onto the sensor array;
• b) decoding means for decoding easily recognized characters from one or more standard targets;
• c) pattern generation means for generating format information from the decoded characters of the one or more standard targets, wherein the format information includes a definition for defining the format of a string of characters that summarizes common attributes of a group of strings each describable with said format, wherein said common attributes includes character type at one or more locations in any string belonging to said group of strings, and wherein the character type includes at least one of an alphabet, a numerical symbol, and a special character;
• and
• d) interpreting means for using the format information previously generated from the decoded characters of the standard targets to interpret a target having characters.