JPS6052469B2 - information processing system - Google Patents

Description

[Detailed Description of the Invention] [Field of Application of the Invention] The present invention is directed to an information processing system using a computer or the like that consistently and automatically inputs, processes, and outputs information, and also creates input information. The present invention relates to the configuration of an information processing system that aims to reduce the required labor as much as possible while at the same time increasing the utilization effect of output results as much as possible.

[Background of the invention]

Automation or labor saving of information input in information processing systems has long been considered an essential requirement for the development of information processing application fields, and optical character readers (α■), mark readers, or Devices such as magnetic printed character readers have been developed and put into practical use.

Each of these automatic information input devices is effective and widely used in its intended field, but they account for less than a few percent of the total information processing system, and their fields of use are limited. It is only a small part. As mentioned above, one of the reasons why the above-mentioned automatic information input devices are not necessarily widely used is that the tasks that can be processed by the automatic information input devices in a particular information processing system are This is thought to be because the proportion of the work to be processed is small and there are not many cases in which it can produce a large effect.

Also, even though it is an automatic information input device, it cannot completely process the input information it handles; for example, in an optical character reading device, 0.
It is normal for 1 to 0.01% of characters to be misread or unreadable, and for these characters that cannot be read correctly, preset rules (parity checks, runes, It is only possible to process information with full human power by using a combination of methods such as detecting characters using a computer (e.g., computer graphics), displaying unreadable characters as images on a display device, and manually correcting them. Furthermore, optical character reading devices intended for automatic character information input cannot process all types of characters; for example, it is currently not possible to read handwritten Chinese characters at all.

As exemplified above, the reason why conventional technologies, especially automatic information input devices, are not necessarily sufficiently popularized and used is that the range that automatic information input devices can process is often limited to only a part of the input information; This is thought to be because in many cases, the rate at which processing systems can be automated and labor-saving is not necessarily large. [Object of the Invention] The present invention has been made in view of the above-mentioned state of the prior art, and it is not necessarily necessary to convert and process all input information of an information processing system into internal information of the information processing system. Instead, it identifies and recognizes only part of the input information and converts and processes it into internal information of the information processing system, and converts this result and part or all of the input information, including the part that was not identified or recognized, into a mere image. The above identification and
An information processing system that dramatically expands the applicable fields of automatic information input devices and, by extension, information processing systems including the same, by processing in relation to recognized input information and displaying or printing the processing results. The purpose is to provide a configuration of

[Summary of the invention]

In order to achieve the above object, the information processing system of the present invention increases the automation ratio of the entire system, and at the same time
The basic idea is to ensure ease of use from the user's perspective.
There is an image part that outputs the input information as is or only after performing auxiliary processing for convenience such as display and printing, and an image part that outputs the input information as it is or after performing auxiliary processing for convenience such as display and printing.After being recognized by a recognition device and subjected to various processing, the output of the image part is controlled. It is characterized in that processing is performed by dividing into a processing information section for controlling and outputting information such as "image" in FIG. 3 in relation to the image section.

Furthermore, another feature of the information processing system of the present invention is that the input information is processed on the assumption that it necessarily includes both the image section and the processing information section. The information processing system of the present invention divides input information into an image part and a processing information part as described above, performs appropriate processing on each part, and outputs them, thereby using a simple image transmission device or a simple recognition device. We provide a new automatic information processing system that cannot be obtained by
This provides a dramatic expansion of the field of application, great economic efficiency, and ease of use.

[Embodiments of the invention]

The basic configuration of the information processing system of the present invention will be described based on FIG.

The information processing system of the present invention includes a photoelectric conversion section 11, a recognition/
It is composed of an identification section 12, a processing section 13, a printing/display section 14, and a storage section 15.

The photoelectric conversion unit 11 is written on a form, microfilm, etc.
Alternatively, it is a known imaging device or scanner that converts printed input information into electrical quantity, and includes at least one photoelectric conversion device, and depending on the application, for example, an imaging device that photoelectrically converts an image area and processing information. In some cases, it has two or more photoelectric conversion devices such as a scanner that photoelectrically converts the image. In addition, as a special case, known video disc device technology (Ph
llllpsTechnicalReview. ．． 33
Volume Pp. l78l93, 19731V. ) etc., it is also possible to use a device that simultaneously photoelectrically converts image information and audio information.

The recognition/identification unit 12 has a known pattern recognition function such as a recognition unit of an optical character recognition device, and recognizes/identifies the processed information part in the input information converted into an electrical quantity by the photoelectric conversion unit. and convert it into the internal code defined in this information processing system. In addition, if the amount of electricity sent from the photoelectric conversion unit 11 corresponds to the image part in the input information, the recognition/identification unit 12 does not recognize this and performs auxiliary processing for printing/displaying. Printing/printing is done through the processing section 13
It is sent to the display section 14. The processing unit 13 has a function equivalent to that of a central processing unit in a known computer system, and refers to data in the storage unit 15 as necessary, and converts the processing information part in the input information to the photoelectric conversion unit 11 and recognition. , processes the processing information sent through the identification unit 12 (converted into an internal code), associates the processing result with the image part in the input information, and outputs the result to a printing/display unit 14 such as a laser printer. . The storage unit 15 may be a high-speed storage device using core memory, wire, semiconductor, etc. used in a normal computer system, or a collective disk device or the like especially when storing a large amount of image part of input information. Use an external storage device. The connection section 16 that connects the processing section 13 and the printing/display section 14 may be equivalent to a normal inter-device connection line, but if necessary, a communication circuit or the like may be used to connect the printing/display section 14 to a terminal. It can also be a device. FIG. 2 shows one of the simplest examples of input information 21 used in the information processing system of the present invention, and the input information 21 consists of a processing information section 22 and an image information section 23.

The information processing system of the present invention reads the processing information portion 22 of the input information 21 and converts it into an internal code, and
The image section 23 is photoelectrically converted and sent to the printing/display section 14. The processing information part 22 converted into an internal code is further processed by the processing part 13 shown in FIG. Output. In addition, the processing information section 22 can also be used as control information for selecting the print/display section to be output when there are a plurality of print/display sections 14. FIG. 3 shows an example of the form in which the input information 21 shown in FIG. 2 is processed by the information processing system of the present invention and is finally output.
The image portion 23 of is output as is as the image portion 24 of the output information 27, and the output information 27 further includes additional information 25 and 26 obtained by processing the processing information portion 22 of the input information 21 in the form of characters or images. Output. In the embodiment described above, the image sections 23 and 24 can be used, for example, as addresses for postal items, so that various billing operations can be automatically performed and addresses can be written in Kanji characters. By using the system, it is possible to simultaneously automate business processing and improve the efficiency of using processing results.

FIG. 4 shows another embodiment of the information processing system of the present invention, which includes a photoelectric conversion section 48, a paper feeding mechanism 49,
A calculation control device 41, a calculation device 45, a register 4 special calculation device 46, an input/output control device 42, a storage device 43, a control device 47 for the photoelectric conversion section 48 and paper feed mechanism 49, and an output device 50 are shown.

This embodiment has a similar configuration to an optical character reader (electronics, handwriting 0CRH-8959, Pp.l97
8, December 1973), a scanning photoelectric conversion device similar to a television camera or the like is used as the photoelectric conversion unit 48 to output an electrostatic dot printer, a cathode ray tube display device with an image display function, or a facsimile output device. By employing it as the device 50, the object of the present invention, namely, automatically processing the input information (FIG. 2) including both the image part with the stamp and the processing information part, and producing the output shown in FIG. The processing that is obtained can be done consistently and automatically.

In an optical character reader using a normal scanning photoelectric conversion section, the unknown character section 22 to be recognized is scanned line by line, and first, the photoelectric conversion section 48 controls the arithmetic and control unit 41 through the register 44 as image information. It is stored in the storage device 43 under .

Also, at this time, instead of adding some auxiliary processing before or after storing it in the storage device, or storing all the image information equivalent to one line of the processing information section 22, it is possible to By storing only the image information corresponding to the processing information 22 and performing the processing of scanning the processed information 22 with the photoelectric conversion unit 48 and the recognition processing performed using the arithmetic unit 45 etc. in parallel, the storage device 43 mainly stores the recognition processing. It is also normal to store only the results obtained. In the information processing system of the present invention, not only the processing information section 22 in the input information 21 is scanned as is done by the above-mentioned ordinary optical character reader, but also the image section 23 is scanned for photoelectric conversion. The image information obtained by this photoelectric conversion is also stored in the storage device 43. Next, known character recognition processing is performed on the image information in the storage device 43 corresponding to the processing information section 2''2, and the recognition result is temporarily stored in the storage device 43 again.Here, the character recognition processing is performed by the recognition/identification section. The processing is performed using an arithmetic control device 41 corresponding to 12, a storage device 43, a four-register arithmetic device 45, a special arithmetic device 46, and the like. Regarding the recognition/identification results corresponding to the processing unit 13 in FIG.
Rules that are predetermined according to the task to be processed using the storage device 43 corresponding to the storage device 43
Processing is performed according to a program stored in the same storage device 43, and with reference to data stored in advance in the same storage device 43.

Note that the processing referred to here refers to the input information described in the processing information section 22, the processing section 13, and the storage device 1.
By program and data in 5 is meant any process that obtains output information depending on input information. In the embodiment shown in FIG. 4, for the sake of simplicity, the photoelectric conversion device corresponding to the photoelectric conversion section 11 in FIG. 1 is replaced by the processing information section 2.
Assuming that the same thing can be used for 2 and the image part 23,
In addition, the recognition/identification unit 12 and processing unit 13 in FIG.
Arithmetic control device 41, register 4, and arithmetic device 4 shown in the figure
5 can be used for both, and the storage device 43 in FIG. 4 is used as a part of the recognition/identification section 12 in FIG. 1 and also as the same storage section 15.

After the above processing, the output information 27 is printed or displayed on the output device 50 corresponding to the printing/display section 14 in FIG.

Like the photoelectric conversion section 48, the output device 50 also outputs the output information 27.
Different printing/display devices may be used for the image section 24 and the additional information sections 25 and 26, or both may be printed out on the same page by using an electrostatic dot printer or the like.
An embodiment of the present invention has been described above in detail. Although not mentioned in the above explanation, the scanning range for photoelectrically converting the image portion 23 in the input information 21 is different from the scanning range for photoelectrically converting the processing information portion 22 according to certain rules. It is clear that changes such as Note that FIG. 5 generally shows the processing information section 53 and the image section 52 that constitute the input information 51 according to the above embodiment, and FIG. 6 similarly shows the contents of the output information 61. The rope image section 62 and additional information section 63 are generally shown. Furthermore, the present invention is applicable to many fields such as various counter operations and service operations.

〔Effect of the invention〕

As explained above, according to the present invention, the fields in which the information processing system can be applied can be dramatically expanded, and its effects are significant.

[Brief explanation of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a basic configuration diagram of the information processing system of the present invention,
FIG. 2 shows an example of input information, and FIG. 3 shows an example of output results.

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. A first means for converting information of a recording medium into an electrical signal, having a recording section for recording first information and second information, and a first means for automatically recognizing the first information and generating code information. a third means for storing predetermined information; and a third means for storing predetermined information; and referring to the information in the third means based on the recognized code information, and converting the reference result and the electrical signal into An information processing system comprising: the converted second information; and fourth means for processing the converted second information.