JPS6336034B2 - - Google Patents

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION The present invention relates to a method for reading numerical information displayed on documents, and an apparatus for implementing this method.

Office forms display numerical information that can be read visually; for example, checks display various types of information numerically along the lower edge, which can be read by machines. This numerical information includes various information such as bank, dealer, account number, etc., and is displayed in so-called computer characters, that is, modified Arabic numerals.

It is possible to read this numerical information using various principles, but currently optical readers, or OCR, or magnetic readers, or
MICR is common.

However, these optical and magnetic reading devices are quite complex and therefore quite expensive. This is due to the structure of computer characters, and as a result, reading devices have become complex and expensive. In other words, the shape of so-called computer numerals has to be observed in its entirety and compared with pre-stored digit shape information to determine what kind of digits have been read, which has led to the complexity of the apparatus.

The present invention has been made in view of the above-mentioned points, and the number structure is made into a rectangular shape mainly consisting of vertical bars and horizontal bars, and at least a part of the vertical bar is directed above, below, left, and right of the number. 2 determined for each
belonging to at least one of the positions, and some of the vertical bars constitute a number that can be read by a mark reading method by arranging a plurality of vertical bars in parallel;
The present invention provides a method for reading numeric information by scanning the digits in the left and right direction, and an apparatus for carrying out this method.

Embodiments of the present invention will be described below with reference to the accompanying drawings.

FIG. 1 shows numbers and some symbols in the present invention. First, these numerals have a shape that can be visually recognized in the same way as ordinary numerals, and are less strange when viewed than computer numerals commonly used on checks and the like. Second,
The structure is centered around vertical bars to facilitate machine reading, especially by mark reading.
The reason why the vertical bar is the center is because the configuration is suitable for reading the numbers by scanning them in the horizontal direction, for example, from the right end to the left end of the numbers. These vertical bars are arranged so that they appear in four positions on the upper and lower halves at the right and left ends of each number, and especially on the right side, there are always two parallel bars on at least one of the upper and lower halves. It is configured so that a vertical bar appears. Then, horizontal bars are combined with these vertical bars, and the joints between the vertical bars and horizontal bars are rounded, and other minimal shape modifications are made to make it useful for visually checking the numbers. ing.

Figure 2 a and b are the numbers "6" shown in Figure 1.
This example shows how to read numbers. When looking at each number, not just ``6'', the number of vertical bars that should appear is a maximum of 2 at the left and right ends of each half of the top and bottom of the number, for a total of 8 in total. Therefore, the vertical bar that should appear in the upper half is U ₁₁ ,
Assume that U ₁₂ , U ₂₁ , and U ₂₂ are the vertical bars that should appear in the lower half as L ₁₁ , L ₁₂ , L ₂₁ , and L ₂₂ .

Then, as shown in figure a, above the number "6",
When scanning the hatched areas in the direction of the arrows in each lower half, there is one vertical bar U ₂₂ for the upper half, and one vertical bar L ₁₁ for the lower half.
Three, L ₁₂ and L ₂₂ , are detected. If only this vertical bar is taken out and shown, it will be as shown in FIG. And, although it does not appear in the case of "6", it appears in the upper half of the dashed line as a vertical bar that appears in the case of other numbers.
There are U ₁₁ , U ₁₂ and U ₂₁ , and L ₂₁ in the lower half. The position where each of these vertical bars should appear is predetermined in terms of the relative relationship between the bars, and when the numbers are scanned, they should not appear at any other position. When a vertical bar appears at an unexpected position, it means that a blemish point other than numbers has been detected.

FIG. 3 shows detection signals when reading as shown in FIG. 2, and shows the relationship of each detection signal with respect to the time axis. in this case,
The scanning direction in Figure 2 is from right to left, while the time axis is from left to right.
The positions of each signal on the diagram are exactly opposite to those in FIG.

Here, each signal appears at a predetermined position relative to each other, and the relationship between L ₁₁ and L ₁₂ has a particularly important meaning. That is, the signal L ₁₁ and
The time difference t with _L12 is in a predetermined multiple relationship with the time width T from the first vertical bar to the fourth vertical bar among the four vertical bars that should appear in each of the upper and lower halves of the number. Therefore, if the first and second vertical bars L ₁₁ and L ₁₂ are detected and the time difference t between them is known, the time width T from the first vertical bar L ₁₁ to the fourth vertical bar L ₂₂ can also be determined by oneself. Ru. However, this requires that the scanning speed for an entire number be substantially constant. In the present invention, it is also considered that scanning is performed by moving a form such as a check by hand, and there may be doubts as to whether constant speed scanning can be ensured in this case. It can be easily understood that sufficient constant speed can be obtained if the form is moved only by the amount of time the document is moved.

Then, by ignoring the vertical bars that appear outside the time width T from the first bar L ₁₁ to the fourth bar L ₂₂ determined from the time difference t between _the first bar L ₁₁ and the second bar L 12. It is possible to avoid mistakenly detecting a combination of a number and a blemish point as another number. Also, when scanning starts from the center of the numbers due to some reason, the third and fourth joint bars L ₂₁ , L ₂₂ U ₂₁ , U ₂₂ are detected first, and within the time width T starting from now, Parts of adjacent numbers will be detected. Regarding this, invalidity is determined based on, for example, the time between signals.

FIG. 4 shows the configuration of an apparatus for carrying out the present invention. In the figure, sensors S _U ,
S _L are the signals U ₁₁ , U ₁₂ , and U 12 in FIG. 3, respectively.
It detects U ₂₁ , U ₂₂ and L ₁₁ , L ₁₂ , L ₂₁ , L ₂₂ , and its detection outputs are output from amplifiers AMP _{U and} L 22 , respectively.
The signal is applied to waveform shaping circuits WF _U and _WFL via AMP _L and converted into a rectangular pulse signal. The detection method of the sensor may be selected as appropriate, such as an optical type, a magnetic type that detects the magnetic component in the printing ink, or a method suitable for so-called embossed printed numbers.

The respective outputs of the waveform shaping circuits WF _U and _WFL are given to the pulse phase detection circuits P _U and P _L as well as to the reference pulse detector DET. Among these, the reference pulse detector DET detects the rising edge of the output of one of the waveform shaping circuits and supplies it to the pulse phase detection circuits P _U and P _L , and then outputs the output to the first bar.
Time width T from first bar U ₁₁ (or L ₁₁ ) to fourth bar U ₂₂ (or L ₂₂ ) based on time difference t between U ₁₁ (or L ₁₁ ) and second bar U ₁₂ (or L ₁₂ ) is calculated and given to address counter AC. The address counter AC is a clock generator based on the time width signal T.
When a predetermined number of clock pulses from CLK are counted, the data in the data storage units MEMU _{and MEML} is transmitted to the data decoding/analyzing unit ANL, and when several clock pulses are counted, various circuits are reset.

Returning to the pulse phase detection circuits PD _{U and} PD _L , these detection circuits are reference pulse detectors.
When the rising detection signal from DET is given, the pulse phase is detected by comparing the bar detection signal given from the waveform shaping circuits WF _U and _WFL with the clock pulse, and the pulse phase is detected by the data storage MEM _U ,
Give to MEM _L. These data storage devices MEM _U ,
Each output of _MEML is given to the data decoding analyzer ANL when a command is given from the address counter AC. The data decoding analyzer ANL has a preset matrix, and when a reset signal is applied from the address counter AC, it performs decoding analysis according to the matrix and sends out an output. This output may contain any of the numbers 0-9 or other symbols.

When the reading of one number or symbol is completed, the address counter AC is activated based on the time width signal T.
are pulse phase detection circuits PD _U , PD _L , data storage
_MEMU , _MEML , reference pulse detector DET, and own circuit AC are reset, and the data decoding/analyzing device ANL is operated to send out an output, thereby completing the number reading operation. Then, the mode for reading the next number is initialized.

FIG. 5 shows the operation of the apparatus shown in FIG. 4 as a flowchart. That is, the U and L pulses are sampled by the start,
No further reading is performed unless there are two U or L pulses. If there are two of them, address count storage, pulse data storage, and address counter activation are sequentially performed for each of them. When the address count reaches a predetermined number, in this case "8", the detected U and L data are sampled, and when the address count increases several more and reaches, for example, "11", the data is analyzed, and then the mode Initialization is performed.

Figure 6 shows another example of numbers that can be used in the present invention, in which a dot is used in place of the second vertical bar in Figure 1, which also impairs visual character recognition. In addition, it is possible to read the mark using the mark reading method.

In the embodiment described above, marks are read by scanning one location in each of the upper and lower halves of the number, but the number of locations to be scanned may be further increased. In that case, the shape of the numbers can be changed as appropriate. 6th
The numbers in the figure are an example. Further, modifications such as using another second vertical bar in addition to the second vertical bar used together with the first vertical bar for reference pulse detection may also be made. In short, it includes those in which a reference pulse is formed by detecting a plurality of vertical bars.

The forms used in the above embodiments include checks, bills, securities, credit cards, etc. as carriers of numerical information, as well as product labels.
Furthermore, a bar includes an aggregate of minute dots printed by a dot printer.

As described above, the present invention makes the numbers for information display suitable for the mark reading method, and also allows a part of the numbers to be read as a mark.
Numerical information on forms can be read using a simpler principle than the conventional method of reading based on the overall shape of the numbers. Furthermore, the structure of the result reading device is also simple.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

FIG. 1 is an explanatory diagram showing the shapes of numbers etc. used in the present invention, FIGS. 2 a and b are explanatory diagrams showing a method of reading numbers in the present invention, taking "6" as an example,
3 is a time chart showing the signals obtained by the reading method shown in FIG. 2, FIG. 4 is a block diagram showing the circuit configuration of the device according to the present invention, and FIG.
FIG. 6 is a flowchart for explaining the operation of the circuit shown in the figure, and FIG. 6 is an explanatory diagram showing other examples of shapes such as numbers that can be used in the present invention. U... Vertical bar on the top half of the number, L... Vertical bar on the bottom half of the number.

Claims (1)

[Scope of Claims] 1. At least two groups of detection pulses are obtained by simultaneously scanning a form as described below in which numerical information is recorded, in the horizontal direction at least two positions above and below the numbers on the form surface. , the width of the number in the horizontal direction is determined by the mutual interval between at least two pulses that appear first among these two groups of detection pulses, and the numerical information is determined by the mutual relationship of the detection pulses that occur within this width. A method to read the numerical information of the documents that are set to be read. Here, in the form, each component part of the Arabic numerals is replaced with a vertical bar and a horizontal bar to form a number with a roughly rectangular outline, and four positions where the vertical bars should be placed are set above, below, left and right of the rectangular outline number. Each number has a vertical bar in at least one of these four positions in the vertical direction and horizontal direction, and at least one of the vertical bars in the two positions on the right side has a plurality of bars at a predetermined distance from each other. Alternatively, information is recorded using numbers made up of bars with dots and symbols using the vertical bars. 2. A document such as the one below on which numerical information is recorded is simultaneously scanned in the left and right direction for at least two positions of the number on the surface of the document, and at least two groups of signals corresponding to the constituent parts of the number are detected as pulses. Reference pulse detection that calculates the horizontal width of a number based on at least two sensors, the position of the first appearing pulse among the detected pulses of these sensors, and the mutual spacing between this first appearing pulse and the following pulse. at least two pulse phase detection circuits that detect the phases of at least two groups of pulses from the sensor with reference to the first pulse position detection signal from the pulse detector; and pulses of these pulse phase detection circuits. at least two data storage devices that store phase outputs; a data complex analyzer that performs numerical discrimination based on the stored contents of these data storage devices; and a data storage device that performs numerical discrimination based on the numerical width signal from the reference pulse detector. A device for reading numerical information on forms, which is equipped with an address counter that outputs the stored contents of a device and then causes the data compound analyzer to perform a discrimination operation. Here, in the form, each constituent part of the Arabic numerals is replaced with a vertical bar and a horizontal bar to form a number with a roughly rectangular outline, and the four positions where the vertical bar should be placed above, below, left and right of the rectangular outline numeral are indicated. Each number has a vertical bar in at least one position in the vertical direction and horizontal direction among these four positions, and at least one vertical bar in the two positions on the right side has a plurality of vertical bars arranged at a predetermined distance from each other. Information is recorded using numbers made up of bars or bars with dots, and symbols using the vertical bars.