Patent ID: 9704052
Date: 2017-07-11
CPC Classifications: G06K

Claim:
1. An image processing method of processing a gray-scale image of character strings arranged in a plurality of lines of text, for character recognition, the method comprising: setting at least a part of a range of a target area, in which the character strings in the gray-scale image area are distributed, as a search area; setting, for each of a plurality of points arranged along one of two axes, representing coordinates in the image, corresponding to an arrangement of the line of text, a plurality of lines extending across the search area, with the point as a starting point, and accumulating, for each of the lines, pixel data in the line within the search area; obtaining, for each point as the starting point of the line, a maximum value of accumulated values in a group of lines set for the point, and specifying at least one local maximum value in a distributed pattern generated by arranging the maximum values obtained for the points, in accordance with the arrangement of the points; and detecting each line of text of the character strings in the image based on a line, in which the accumulated value corresponding to the specified local maximum value is obtained, set as a line passing between the character strings, wherein the search area is an inner area of the target area offset by a first predetermined distance above the search area and a second predetermined distance below the search area, wherein an area above the first predetermined distance and an area below the second predetermined distance are blank space.