Patent ID: 9569676
Date: 2017-02-14
CPC Classifications: G06K,G06T

Claim:
1. A computer implemented system having (i) a repository to store a pre-determined template having sections and alphanumeric characters superimposed on the template, (ii) a camera to capture images of traffic signs, (iii) a processor to select analog images from captured images of traffic signs, (iv) a shape detector to detect shapes within the suitable analog images to obtain readable images of alphanumeric characters, (v) an image enhancing module to enhance the quality of the images of alphanumeric characters, and (vi) an alphanumeric character recognizer to recognize alphanumeric characters from the received enhanced readable images, for extracting and recognizing alphanumeric characters from traffic signs and displaying the recognized alphanumeric characters on a vehicle's display, said alphanumeric character recognizer comprising: a binary converter configured to convert the received enhanced readable images to digital binary images; a first resizer cooperating with the binary converter and configured to resize the digital binary images to obtain resized images; a thinning module cooperating with the first resizer to receive the resized images and configured to apply morphological thinning on the received resized images to obtain analog images having thinned alphanumeric characters; an image cropping module cooperating with the thinning module and configured to crop the analog images having thinned alphanumeric characters to obtain alphanumeric characters; an alphanumeric character cropping module cooperating with the image cropping module to receive the cropped images having the alphanumeric characters and configured to obtain separated alphanumeric characters; a second resizer cooperating with the alphanumeric character cropping module and configured to resize the separated alphanumeric characters to obtain resized alphanumeric characters; a first comparator cooperating with the repository to receive the pre-determined template and the second resizer to receive the resized alphanumeric characters, and configured to compare each of the resized alphanumeric characters with the pre-determined template to obtain number of pixels present in the different sections of the template; and a second comparator cooperating with the repository to receive the table containing pre-determined threshold pixel count for each of the sections of the alphanumeric characters superimposed on the template, and cooperating with the first comparator to receive the obtained number of pixels and compare the obtained number of pixels present in particular sections with the received threshold pixel count for that section to recognize corresponding alphanumeric characters.