Patent GB-1323556-A (GB)
Title: Image analysis
IPC: G06T7/60
Filed: 1969-10-31
Abstract: 1323556 Character recognition IMAGE ANALYSING COMPUTERS LTD 28 Oct 1970 [31 Oct 1969] 53403/69 Headings G4D and G4R An image analysis system capable of supplying at least one secondary parameter for each of one or more detected features in a field under analysis, includes primary computing means responsive to scanned video and controlled by coincidence detector means whereby the information in the computing means is updated at or before the end of each scan intersect with a detected feature and operable to provide two or more different parameters from the video for each detected feature, addressing means controlled by the coincidence detector means to recover each primary parameter at a unique point in relation to the associated feature, and secondary computing means responsive to the output of the addressing means to generate the secondary parameter therefrom. One application is character recognition. A separate primary computing means may be provided for each primary parameter in which case each may have separate respective coincidence detector means, or a common coincidence detector means may be provided. Alternatively, a single primary computing means may be used being controlled to derive the various (different) primary parameters in turn in response to video from respective successive scans of the field. The scanner is applied to the primary computing means via a thresholder, or a parallel set of thresholders with differing thresholds, and delays may be used at the inputs to the primary computing means to enable the same video to be applied a plurality of times in succession for derivation of respective primary parameters, or to apply successive video signals to the computing means together. The outputs of the primary computing means may include delays to equalize the arrival times of the output signals at the inputs of the secondary computing means. A coincidence detector means includes a bi-stable which is set if the quantized video equals 1 and reset if neither the output of the bi-stable delayed for one scan line nor the quantized video is 1. Thus since the scan pattern is a leftto-right and downwards horizontal raster, the bi-stable output represents the character being scanned augmented by a downwards shadow projection on the right extending down to the lowest horizontal level of the character and right to the rightmost notional vertical line touching the character. The primary computing means is updated whenever the bi-stable output goes from 1 to 0, and its output is gated out to the secondary computing means at the bottom right hand corner of the augmented character. The latter is achieved by setting a further bi-stable when both the input quantized video and the one-scan-line-delayed output of the first bistable are 1 and resetting it when neither is 1, gating out occurring if the reset state is present when the delayed first bi-stable output goes from 1 to 0. A primary computing means may have a first logic module producing information about the primary parameter from the quantized video, a second logic module receiving the current value of this parameter from a delay device, and a third logic module updating the current value according to the information from the first module, the updated value being sent to the delay device when the command for updating comes from the coincidence detector means, this command also resetting the logic modules. Three primary parameters for a feature may be presence, area and optical density, the secondary parameter computer counting the feature-present pulse if the area and density compare appropriately with respective thresholds. Some primary parameter computing means may be supplied with video from a reference character, instead of from the character being scanned for recognition, to permit the latter to be compared with the reference. Other possible primary parameters are length, height, width and perimeter of the feature and its position in the scan. Information arriving at a primary computing means while it is busy may be ignored or diverted to a store or another primary computing means. Thresholding may be replaced by A-to-D conversion indicating density changes across image boundaries.