Image analysis – Editing – error checking – or correction
Reexamination Certificate
1997-07-28
2003-08-19
Couso, Yon J. (Department: 2625)
Image analysis
Editing, error checking, or correction
C382S137000, C382S224000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06608944
ABSTRACT:
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
This invention relates generally to image recognition and, more particularly, to optical character recognition.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
In practical optical character recognition (OCR) systems, each recognition result (e.g., for the interpretation of a field) is assigned a score representing the “goodness” of the result; often these scores are intended to reflect the probability that the recognition result is correct. The scores are used to determine which results are to be reviewed by a human and which are accepted without review.
A typical approach computes a field recognition score as the product of recognition scores for all the individual characters of the field (as if they were independent probabilities). Traditional recognition techniques for numerical entities, such as zip codes, serial numbers, and account numbers, treat each digit of the number as equally important—an error in the leftmost digit of the number is as significant as an error in the rightmost digit.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
As noted above, the application of traditional recognition techniques implies that errors in, e.g., a dollar (or higher order digits) are roughly equally likely as errors in cents digits. As such, a possible error in the hundred dollars digit of a financial amount is no more likely to receive human review (at additional economic cost) than a similar possible error in the one cent digit. However, we have observed that in the recognition of economic amounts an error in the leftmost digit is “worth” much more than an error in the rightmost digit. Therefore, and in accordance with the inventive concept, we describe a technique for producing field recognition scores as a function of the importance of a position in the image.
In an embodiment of the invention, an OCR system for scanning financial amounts is adapted to produce field recognition scores that reflect economic value. In particular, a value-based score for a recognition result is determined from both the individual character recognition scores and a “value” that is associated with each character position of the recognition result. As used herein, this “value” is referred to as an “error value.” In general, the value-based score is computed by adding the error value for each character position of the recognition result. Such an approach is potentially of significant economic value to banks, remittance houses, and similar companies for which the costs associated with correction of error are correlated with the value of the error (e.g. customers are less likely to dispute cent errors than dollar errors).
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Nohl Craig R.
Strom B Ivan
Couso Yon J.
Lucent Technologies - Inc.
Rosenthal Eugene J.
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