Patent ID: 8805080

Claim:
A method of identifying a direction of characters in an image block, comprising: performing optical character recognition processing on the image block by assuming various directions as assumed character directions, respectively, to obtain sub image blocks, recognized characters corresponding to the sub image blocks and correctness measures in each of the assumed character directions; in sub image blocks in the assumed character directions with a 180° mutual relation therebetween, searching for a minimum matching pair of the sub image blocks, wherein the minimum matching pair is two sets of sub image blocks in the assumed character directions with a 180° mutual relation therebetween, which have corresponding positions, identical sizes and a minimum number of sub image blocks; adjusting the sub image blocks in the searched minimum matching pair, to eliminate an effect, on an identification result, of different numbers of sub image blocks in the assumed character directions; calculating an accumulative correctness measure in each of the assumed character directions based on adjusted sub image blocks; and identifying the direction of the characters in the image block according to the accumulative correctness measures.