Electronics Projects: OCR

Implementation of Optical Character Recognition (OCR):

     Optical character recognition, usually abbreviated to OCR, is the electronic conversion of scanned images of handwritten, typewritten or printed text into machine-encoded text. It is widely used as a form of data entry from some sort of original paper data source, whether documents, sales receipts, mail, or any number of printed records. It is a common method of digitizing printed texts so that they can be electronically searched, stored more compactly, displayed on-line, and used in machine processes such as machine translation, text-to-speech and text mining. The aim of Optical Character Recognition (OCR) is to classify optical patterns (often contained in a digital image) corresponding to alphanumeric or other characters. The process of OCR involves several steps including segmentation, feature extraction, and classification.

OCR is a field of research in pattern recognition, artificial intelligence and computer vision.

Applications:

OCR can be used for:

·         Data entry for business documents, e.g. check clearing

·         Automatic number plate recognition

·         Importing business card information into a contact list

·         More quickly make textual versions of printed documents, e.g. book scanning

·         Make electronic images of printed documents searchable, e.g. Google Books

·         Converting handwriting in real time to control a computer (pen computing)