OCR TECHNOLOGY
Optical Character Recognition
or
more commonly known as OCR, is the translation of handwritten,
typewritten or printed text into machine readable and editable text
using either mechanical or electrical means. OCR is an off-line character
recognition technique. OCR is a vast technology that
extends into the fields of pattern recognition, artificial intelligence
and machine vision. OCR started off using pure optical instruments
like mirrors and lenses but has now transformed into a purely digital
method that uses scanners and computer algorithms.
What may seem like a relatively new technology was developed
way back in 1929, which was a mechanical device that used a photo
detector and different templates. The template moved all over the
text to be recognized, and when the template and the character lined up
exactly, no light reached the photo detector and that character was
identified. However, this worked with only a predetermined font, and each
font needed a different template. Today’s systems can recognize a
wide variety of fonts spanning across different languages.
The latest OCR technology boasts of accuracy exceeding 99%.
This means that it still needs to be reviewed manually for errors. The
OCR technology used in scanners, are still not very accurate especially
when used to scan hand written documents. With an accuracy of
80-90%, only neat handwritten characters can be recognized, which
amounts to around a dozen errors on each page and makes the use of
this technology fairly limited.
or
more commonly known as OCR, is the translation of handwritten,
typewritten or printed text into machine readable and editable text
using either mechanical or electrical means. OCR is an off-line character
recognition technique. OCR is a vast technology that
extends into the fields of pattern recognition, artificial intelligence
and machine vision. OCR started off using pure optical instruments
like mirrors and lenses but has now transformed into a purely digital
method that uses scanners and computer algorithms.
What may seem like a relatively new technology was developed
way back in 1929, which was a mechanical device that used a photo
detector and different templates. The template moved all over the
text to be recognized, and when the template and the character lined up
exactly, no light reached the photo detector and that character was
identified. However, this worked with only a predetermined font, and each
font needed a different template. Today’s systems can recognize a
wide variety of fonts spanning across different languages.
The latest OCR technology boasts of accuracy exceeding 99%.
This means that it still needs to be reviewed manually for errors. The
OCR technology used in scanners, are still not very accurate especially
when used to scan hand written documents. With an accuracy of
80-90%, only neat handwritten characters can be recognized, which
amounts to around a dozen errors on each page and makes the use of
this technology fairly limited.
0 comments:
Post a Comment