Patent ID: 7103198

Claim:
A method for determining an adjacency relation used in analyzing a business card having a plurality of data blocks, the method comprising the steps of: (A) selecting a target data block and a comparison data block from the data blocks; (B) checking if the comparison data block and the target data block are topologically overlapped, wherein “topologically overlapped” means that an intersection of vertical or horizontal projections of the comparison data block and the target data block in proportion to each projection reaches a certain value; (C) if the comparison data block and the target data block are topologically overlapped, then checking the comparison data block, in comparison with the data blocks which are topologically overlapped with the target data block, whether it is the nearest one in distance to the target data block; (D) if the comparison data block is the nearest one in distance to the target data block, then checking whether there exists an interrupted data block between the comparison data block and the target data block, the interrupted data block is one of the data blocks which is not topologically overlapped with the comparison data block nor the target data block on neither vertical nor horizontal directions and a vertical or horizontal projection of the interrupted data block is situated between the vertical or horizontal projections of the comparison data block and the target data block; and (E) if there exists no interrupted data block between the comparison data block and the target data block, then determining there exists an adjacency relation between the comparison data block and the target data block.