Patent Document ID: 8761514
Application ID: 13036875

Base Claim:
1. A character recognition apparatus comprising: a binarizer for binarizing an input image; a character extractor for extracting at least one character area from the binarized image; a character feature value extractor for calculating a slope value of the extracted at least one character area and setting the calculated slope value as a character feature value; and a character recognizer for recognizing a character by using a neural network for recognizing a plurality of characters by receiving the set character feature value, wherein the character feature value extractor divides the at least one character area into a plurality of block areas, calculates character slope direction information for each of the plurality of divided block areas, gathers the character slope direction information calculated for each of the block areas, and sets the gathered value as a character feature value for each character area, and wherein the character feature value extractor presets representative values respectively corresponding to a plurality of slope ranges, calculates a character slope value for each of the plurality of divided block areas, counts the number of selection times of a preset slope range corresponding to a slope range in which the calculated character slope values is included from among the plurality of preset slope ranges, normalizes a count value accumulated for each of the plurality of preset slope ranges after completing the count for the plurality of divided block areas, and sets the normalized values as a character feature value of a specific character.

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Claim 3:
3. The character recognition apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the neural network for recognizing a plurality of characters comprises: a character group classification neural network for classifying a character group according to the received character feature value; and character recognition neural networks for recognizing a character according to the received character feature value.