Patent ID: 6269171
Filing Date: 2001-07-31
Classification: G06K

Abstract:
A method of locating block locations of mail pieces in a stream of mail pieces using an optical character recognition system comprising the steps of:converting images from the stream of mail pieces to be evaluated to digital form;generating compressed forms of the images;grouping similar forms of the compressed image together up to a predetermined maximum number of groups and counting the number of images in each group;finding block information for each of the images from the uncompressed form of the image;comparing a new image in compressed form to the existing groups and adding the image to the group with which it matches;purging a group and starting a new group with the new image if no match for an image is found and the maximum number of groups already exist, the group to be purged is the group having the smallest number of matches that has not had a new entry in a predetermined number of new images evaluated; andusing block information obtained from previous members of a group to aid in block location of new images added to an existing group.