A low-cost hand-carried OCR system implemented with monolithic ICs
Michael Rahier, Paul G. A. Jespers · Digital Access to Libraries (Université catholique de Louvain (UCL), l'Université de Namur (UNamur) and the Université Saint-Louis (USL-B)) · 1978
A new integrated OCR system is presented. It allows recognition of printed uppercase and lowercase alphanumerics at a reading speed of 100 characters per second. The algorithm consists of following steps: edge detection, line-thinning, pattern segmentation, filtering, curvature calculations and final decision. The first two steps are simultaneously performed by means of a custom-designed LSI circuit. Its output signal is a sequence of vectors describing the contour of the skeletonized character. This information is fed to a microprocessor which performs the other steps. The system is designed as a low-cost equipment suitable for hand-carried OCR applications where well-formed characters are to be read. The use of a shape extraction recognition method leads conceptually to multifont possibilities.