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WO2004029865A1 - Saisie d'une chaine de textes - Google Patents

Saisie d'une chaine de textes Download PDF

Info

Publication number
WO2004029865A1
WO2004029865A1 PCT/IB2003/003932 IB0303932W WO2004029865A1 WO 2004029865 A1 WO2004029865 A1 WO 2004029865A1 IB 0303932 W IB0303932 W IB 0303932W WO 2004029865 A1 WO2004029865 A1 WO 2004029865A1
Authority
WO
WIPO (PCT)
Prior art keywords
text string
image
camera
image data
valid
Prior art date
Legal status (The legal status is an assumption and is not a legal conclusion. Google has not performed a legal analysis and makes no representation as to the accuracy of the status listed.)
Ceased
Application number
PCT/IB2003/003932
Other languages
English (en)
Inventor
Duncan F. Mcpherson
Current Assignee (The listed assignees may be inaccurate. Google has not performed a legal analysis and makes no representation or warranty as to the accuracy of the list.)
Koninklijke Philips NV
Original Assignee
Koninklijke Philips Electronics NV
Priority date (The priority date is an assumption and is not a legal conclusion. Google has not performed a legal analysis and makes no representation as to the accuracy of the date listed.)
Filing date
Publication date
Application filed by Koninklijke Philips Electronics NV filed Critical Koninklijke Philips Electronics NV
Priority to AU2003256027A priority Critical patent/AU2003256027A1/en
Publication of WO2004029865A1 publication Critical patent/WO2004029865A1/fr
Anticipated expiration legal-status Critical
Ceased legal-status Critical Current

Links

Classifications

    • H—ELECTRICITY
    • H04—ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE
    • H04M—TELEPHONIC COMMUNICATION
    • H04M1/00—Substation equipment, e.g. for use by subscribers
    • H04M1/26—Devices for calling a subscriber
    • H04M1/27—Devices whereby a plurality of signals may be stored simultaneously
    • H04M1/274—Devices whereby a plurality of signals may be stored simultaneously with provision for storing more than one subscriber number at a time, e.g. using toothed disc
    • H04M1/2745—Devices whereby a plurality of signals may be stored simultaneously with provision for storing more than one subscriber number at a time, e.g. using toothed disc using static electronic memories, e.g. chips
    • H04M1/2753—Devices whereby a plurality of signals may be stored simultaneously with provision for storing more than one subscriber number at a time, e.g. using toothed disc using static electronic memories, e.g. chips providing data content
    • H04M1/2755—Devices whereby a plurality of signals may be stored simultaneously with provision for storing more than one subscriber number at a time, e.g. using toothed disc using static electronic memories, e.g. chips providing data content by optical scanning
    • G—PHYSICS
    • G06—COMPUTING OR CALCULATING; COUNTING
    • G06V—IMAGE OR VIDEO RECOGNITION OR UNDERSTANDING
    • G06V30/00—Character recognition; Recognising digital ink; Document-oriented image-based pattern recognition
    • G06V30/10—Character recognition
    • G06V30/14—Image acquisition
    • G06V30/1444—Selective acquisition, locating or processing of specific regions, e.g. highlighted text, fiducial marks or predetermined fields
    • G—PHYSICS
    • G06—COMPUTING OR CALCULATING; COUNTING
    • G06V—IMAGE OR VIDEO RECOGNITION OR UNDERSTANDING
    • G06V30/00—Character recognition; Recognising digital ink; Document-oriented image-based pattern recognition
    • G06V30/10—Character recognition

Definitions

  • This invention relates to a device for and to a method of capturing a text string.
  • the invention has application in, but is not limited to, capturing a text string using a mobile telecommunications device.
  • a device for capturing a text string including a receiver for receiving data representing an image, an image processor arranged to process the image data such as to detect an occurrence of a predetermined text string, and to use the detected occurrence to identify a second text string which includes and is longer than the predetermined text string, and a provider for providing non-image data representing the second text string.
  • the provider may be software, such as optical character recognition software, which determines the second text string and gives an output, to a display or to some other software for example, in a format suitable for use thereby.
  • the output may be in ASCII or in any other suitable format.
  • the device is a mobile telecommunications device.
  • the device may comprise a determiner for determining if the second text string represents a valid network address, or a valid internet address.
  • the determiner may take any suitable form. It may be a software module which causes a document containing a list of valid addresses to be accessed, using a web browser for example, and which initiates a search for a match.
  • the determiner is a module which causes a network connection to be made and addresses the address represented by the text string. If the address is valid, this can be detected by detection of the supply of data from the address which would be supplied only if the address were a valid one.
  • a method of capturing text string comprising receiving data representing an image processing the image data such as to detect an occurrence of a predetermined text string, using the detected occurrence to identify a second text string which includes and is longer than the predetermined text string, and providing non-image data representing the second text string.
  • the invention can allow the capture of a text string from data representing an image without requiring user intervention, or only a limited amount of intervention.
  • the invention removes the possibility of transcription error, which can so easily occur when entering text strings into devices, especially mobile telephones.
  • the text string comprises alphabetic characters in particular, the invention can allow quick and simple data entry, avoiding the process of manual data entry, which can often be lengthy and tedious, especially when using mobile telephones and other devices which do not have full alphanumeric keyboards.
  • Figure 1 is a schematic diagram of a mobile telephone handset according to one aspect of the invention
  • Figure 2 is a flow chart illustrating operation of the mobile telephone handset of Figure 1 ;
  • Figure 3 is a schematic diagram of one alternative form of mobile telephone handset according to one aspect of the invention.
  • FIG 4 is a schematic diagram illustrating a further embodiment of a mobile telephone handset according to one aspect of the invention.
  • a mobile telephone handset 10 is shown comprising generally a CPU 11, an integrated digital camera 12, an image processor 13, a keypad 14 and a display 15.
  • the CPU 11 is operable in response to an input command received via the keypad 14 or via some other input device (not shown) to control the camera 12 to capture an image. Data representing this image is passed to the image processor 13, which is operated under control of the CPU 11. Operation of the mobile telephone handset 10 will now be described in more detail with reference to Figure 2.
  • step 21 operation begins at step 20, after which it is determined at step 21 whether the scanning of a text string is required.
  • Step 21 is typically performed by the CPU 11 by determining whether or not an input by a user requires the scanning of some text from a printed image in front of the camera 12.
  • Step 21 is repeated until a positive determination is made, whereafter progression is made to step 22, where the CPU 11 instigates operation of the camera 12, and controls it to provide image data to the image processor 13 at step 23.
  • the image processor 13 scans the image data for occurrences of the letter W. This may be performed in any convenient manner, and preferably takes account of variations in the font, colour and size of letters in the image data.
  • a decision is made as to whether or not the letter W has been found.
  • step 24 Only when the letter W has been found in the image data does the operation proceed to step 26, at which step it is determined whether or not the W forms part of a string of WWW. If a negative determination is given, the operation returns to step 24; otherwise, it proceeds to step 27, at which orientation of the image is made in line with the WWW text string.
  • step 28 The ends of the entire text string including the WWW are then identified at step 28, where the entire text string is isolated. This step may involve detecting a border around the text string, or detecting spaces (i.e. no text) at the ends of the text string.
  • OCR optical character recognition
  • the CPU 11 determines, from examination of internal flags (not shown) whether or not the user requires display of the text string for approval. If at step 31 a determination is made that no display is required, the operation proceeds to step 34. If a positive determination is made, the text string is displayed on the display 15 at step 32. A user may then approve or disapprove the text string displayed, with disapproval resulting in a return to step 24. If the user approves the text string, the CPU 11 determines at step 34 whether or not a user requires the text string to be a valid network address. If a negative determination is made at step 34, the operation proceeds to step 37.
  • the CPU 11 at step 35 determines whether or not the text string relates to a valid uniform resource locator (URL), in a known manner. This step preferably comprises attempting to access the webpage identified by the URL, and identifying from the returned data whether a webpage exists. If the URL is determined to be valid, the operation moves on to step 37; otherwise the operation returns to step 24. At step 37, the CPU 11 determines from investigation of internal flags (not shown) whether or not the user requires storage of the valid URL. If a positive determination is made, the operation proceeds to step 38, where the URL is stored within any convenient storage device of the mobile telephone handset 10. After storage, or if a negative determination is made at step 37, the operation proceeds to step 39.
  • URL uniform resource locator
  • the CPU 11 determines whether or not a user requires the transmission of the URL to a remote location, such as for example a personal computer belonging to the user. If a positive determination is made, the URL is transmitted at step 40 in any convenient manner, such as for example by e- mail or by SMS. After step 40, or if a negative determination is made at step 39, the operation proceeds to end at step 41.
  • step 24 Instructions are also included for scanning the image data in a logical way such that step 24 is not performed in respect of the same area and in respect of the letter W having the same size as has occurred for a previous scan of that area. Furthermore, the step 24 may include determining if the entire image has been scanned, in which case it is assumed that there is no readable URL, and the operation proceeds to step 41.
  • the mobile telephone handset 10 need not be provided with processing resources of the order required for text recognition in conventional personal computer applications. This is advantageous since it can result in significant savings in battery power, and/or in the time taken to recognise a URL text string from an image captured by the camera 12 and/or a reduction in complexity.
  • the handset 50 includes generally a camera module 51 and a mobile telephone module 52.
  • the camera module 51 includes camera optics 53 and a processor 54, which are connected to each other.
  • the telephone module 52 includes some image processing hardware 55, a keypad 56 and a display 57, all of which are operated under control of a CPU 58.
  • the image processing hardware 55 is connected to the processor 54 by a data bus 59.
  • Operation is similar to the operation of the mobile telephone handset of Figure 1.
  • the processor 54 of the camera module 51 is arranged to modify the brightness and/or contrast characteristics of the image represented by the data provided by the camera optics 53 in such a way as to make the image data more susceptible to processing by the image processing hardware 55.
  • the processed data is transferred to the image processing hardware 55 from the processor 54 via the data bus 59.
  • the image processing hardware 55 operates under control of the CPU 58 to perform the steps 24 to 41 of the flowchart of Figure 2.
  • the embodiment of Figure 3 may confer advantages over the embodiment of Figure 1 in that it requires less processing resources than the combination of the image processor 13 and the CPU 11 of Figure 1.
  • a camera module like the module 51 of Figure 3 is arranged to perform all of the processing required, and supplies a URL (text string) to the CPU of a telephone module without requiring any substantial processing by the telephone module.
  • a camera module like the module 51 of Figure 3 is arranged to perform the steps 24 to 27 of the Figure 2 flow chart. In this case, the camera module provides to a telephone module information identifying the location, size and orientation of the text string WWW.
  • Figure 4 shows an alternative embodiment for a mobile telephone handset 60 according to the invention. Referring to Figure 4, the mobile telephone handset 60 is shown including a port 61 , to which an external digital camera device 62 may be connected.
  • connection of the camera 62 to the mobile telephone handset 60 allows the transfer of image data from the camera for processing within the mobile telephone handset, and also allows a CPU (not shown) of the mobile telephone handset to control the camera 62.
  • Operation of the apparatus of Figure 4 is substantially the same as that described above with reference to Figures 1 , 2 and 3.
  • the text string which is searched for by an image processor is not WWW as in the above-described embodiments.
  • the text string may be one which commonly occurs as a prefix in a URL, such as 'wap' or 'http://', or it may be one which commonly appears as a suffix, e.g. '.com', '.net', or '.org' etc.
  • the image processor preferably searches for each of the different possibilities (e.g. different possible suffixes) until an appropriate string is found.
  • the mobile telephone handset 10 is provided with a menu system, allowing functions to be selected by a user from a menu-based option list, which type of interface is now very familiar to mobile telephone users.
  • a menu page is included which allows a user to select a text string from a list of displayed text strings. The list may contain those suffixes and prefixes listed above.
  • the menu page also contains an option which allows a user to enter a text string, which is subsequently searched for in the manner described above.
  • the mobile telephone handset 10 is arranged to allow the point-and-click capture of telephone numbers.
  • the predetermined text string is the whole or a part of STD code, which for London, UK is currently '020'. What predetermined text string the handset 10 is arranged to search for depends on the allocation of telephone numbers in the area or country in which the handset is to be used primarily.
  • the majority of numbers used in connection with business are expected to be freephone numbers (having STD code 0800 or 0500), local- rate numbers (having STD code 08457 or 08459 for example), or numbers having the same STD code as the area in which the number is displayed.
  • the mobile telephone handset 10 is arranged, on being controlled to capture a telephone number from an image, to determine the STD code for the area in which the handset is currently located, and to search the image for this code. If no occurrence of the STD code is found, the handset 10 is then controlled to search for the freephone and the local-rate codes. If there is still no success, the handset 10 is controlled to search for STD code prefixes, such as '01' and '02'.
  • the predetermined text string and the order for searching the possible strings or prefixes may depend on the country in which the handset 10 is sold or used.
  • a list of STD codes, or similar, may appear in a menu page of the handset 10, allowing a user to select the appropriate number string, after which the handset will identify the number in the image which begins with or otherwise includes that number string.
  • a telephone number When a telephone number has been captured from an image, it is made available for immediate dialling, included into a phone book in the handset 10, or alternatively saved into a special location for subsequent retrieval by a user.
  • To allow more easy capture of text strings, particularly URLs, from printed materials it may be desired to use a font which is read easily by OCR software.
  • a text string could be black on a standard colour, e.g. white, background, and may include a line border in the form of a rectangular box.
  • the step of detecting a box is preferably a precursor and provides assistance to the step of detecting the predetermined text string.
  • the term 'text string' will be understood to mean a string of alphabetic characters and/or numerals, which string may or may not include marks of punctuation, e.g. '.', '&' or '@'.
  • a text string will not normally include one or more spaces, but this is not precluded by the embodiments.
  • the text string includes at least one alphabetic character.

Landscapes

  • Engineering & Computer Science (AREA)
  • Signal Processing (AREA)
  • Computer Vision & Pattern Recognition (AREA)
  • Physics & Mathematics (AREA)
  • General Physics & Mathematics (AREA)
  • Multimedia (AREA)
  • Theoretical Computer Science (AREA)
  • Telephone Function (AREA)

Abstract

Cette invention se rapporte à un téléphone mobile ou à un assistant numérique personnel (PDA) (10) qui est pourvu d'une caméra (12) et d'un processeur d'images (13) servant à traiter les données d'image fournies par la caméra. Le processeur d'images est conçu pour rechercher la chaîne de textes www et pour utiliser une quelconque occurrence ainsi trouvée pour identifier un localisateur de ressources universel (URL) qui contient cette chaîne de textes. Le localisateur URL est testé pour déterminer s'il est valide ou non et peut être mémorisé et/ou envoyé par courrier électronique ou par SMS à un destinataire éloigné.
PCT/IB2003/003932 2002-09-25 2003-09-10 Saisie d'une chaine de textes Ceased WO2004029865A1 (fr)

Priority Applications (1)

Application Number Priority Date Filing Date Title
AU2003256027A AU2003256027A1 (en) 2002-09-25 2003-09-10 Capturing a text string

Applications Claiming Priority (2)

Application Number Priority Date Filing Date Title
GBGB0222209.9A GB0222209D0 (en) 2002-09-25 2002-09-25 Capturing a text string
GB0222209.9 2002-09-25

Publications (1)

Publication Number Publication Date
WO2004029865A1 true WO2004029865A1 (fr) 2004-04-08

Family

ID=9944707

Family Applications (1)

Application Number Title Priority Date Filing Date
PCT/IB2003/003932 Ceased WO2004029865A1 (fr) 2002-09-25 2003-09-10 Saisie d'une chaine de textes

Country Status (3)

Country Link
AU (1) AU2003256027A1 (fr)
GB (1) GB0222209D0 (fr)
WO (1) WO2004029865A1 (fr)

Cited By (4)

* Cited by examiner, † Cited by third party
Publication number Priority date Publication date Assignee Title
WO2006025797A1 (fr) * 2004-09-01 2006-03-09 Creative Technology Ltd Systeme de recherche
EP1571587A3 (fr) * 2004-02-29 2006-05-24 OmniVision Technologies, Inc. Procédé et apparail pour l'utilisation d'une URL (localisateur de ressources universelles) balayable
US20120093415A1 (en) * 2010-10-18 2012-04-19 Eldon Technology Limited Dynamic Recognition of Web Addresses in Video
US8165409B2 (en) * 2006-06-09 2012-04-24 Sony Mobile Communications Ab Mobile device identification of media objects using audio and image recognition

Citations (5)

* Cited by examiner, † Cited by third party
Publication number Priority date Publication date Assignee Title
EP1122934A2 (fr) * 2000-02-02 2001-08-08 Motorola, Inc. Appareil de communication muni d'une fonction de numérotation utilisant la reconnaissance optique de caractère et méthode associée
WO2001057786A1 (fr) * 2000-02-01 2001-08-09 Scansoft, Inc. Conversion automatique de documents statiques en documents dynamiques
JP2002111841A (ja) * 2000-10-04 2002-04-12 Sony Corp 携帯通信端末および文字読取装置
WO2002047390A1 (fr) * 2000-12-04 2002-06-13 Isurftv Procede et systeme d'identification de donnees d'adressage dans une presentation de television
JP2002252691A (ja) * 2001-02-26 2002-09-06 Seiko Epson Corp ＯＣＲ（ＯｐｔｉｃａｌＣｈａｒａｃｔｅｒＲｅｃｏｇｎｉｔｉｏｎ：光学的文字読み取り）機能付き携帯電話端末

Patent Citations (5)

* Cited by examiner, † Cited by third party
Publication number Priority date Publication date Assignee Title
WO2001057786A1 (fr) * 2000-02-01 2001-08-09 Scansoft, Inc. Conversion automatique de documents statiques en documents dynamiques
EP1122934A2 (fr) * 2000-02-02 2001-08-08 Motorola, Inc. Appareil de communication muni d'une fonction de numérotation utilisant la reconnaissance optique de caractère et méthode associée
JP2002111841A (ja) * 2000-10-04 2002-04-12 Sony Corp 携帯通信端末および文字読取装置
WO2002047390A1 (fr) * 2000-12-04 2002-06-13 Isurftv Procede et systeme d'identification de donnees d'adressage dans une presentation de television
JP2002252691A (ja) * 2001-02-26 2002-09-06 Seiko Epson Corp ＯＣＲ（ＯｐｔｉｃａｌＣｈａｒａｃｔｅｒＲｅｃｏｇｎｉｔｉｏｎ：光学的文字読み取り）機能付き携帯電話端末

Non-Patent Citations (2)

* Cited by examiner, † Cited by third party
Title
PATENT ABSTRACTS OF JAPAN vol. 2002, no. 08 5 August 2002 (2002-08-05) *
PATENT ABSTRACTS OF JAPAN vol. 2003, no. 01 14 January 2003 (2003-01-14) *

Cited By (5)

* Cited by examiner, † Cited by third party
Publication number Priority date Publication date Assignee Title
EP1571587A3 (fr) * 2004-02-29 2006-05-24 OmniVision Technologies, Inc. Procédé et apparail pour l'utilisation d'une URL (localisateur de ressources universelles) balayable
WO2006025797A1 (fr) * 2004-09-01 2006-03-09 Creative Technology Ltd Systeme de recherche
US8165409B2 (en) * 2006-06-09 2012-04-24 Sony Mobile Communications Ab Mobile device identification of media objects using audio and image recognition
US20120093415A1 (en) * 2010-10-18 2012-04-19 Eldon Technology Limited Dynamic Recognition of Web Addresses in Video
US8983191B2 (en) * 2010-10-18 2015-03-17 Echostar Uk Holdings Limited Dynamic recognition of web addresses in video

Also Published As

Publication number Publication date
GB0222209D0 (en) 2002-10-30
AU2003256027A1 (en) 2004-04-19

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