Patent Document ID: 20110128360
Application ID: 13020058
Patent Status: 0

Claim One:
1. A system for extracting information from an identity document, the system comprising: a) at least one light source for illuminating the identity document; b) at least one digital camera including a lens and a two-dimensional sensor array configured to acquire at least one two-dimensional image frame of the identity document; and c) a processor for processing said at least one two-dimensional image frame, said processor having a document-template database, said processor configured to run an optical character recognition (OCR) routine for extracting textual information from the identity document in the form of alphanumerical information, wherein said OCR routine includes: i) determining a type of the identity document; ii) fetching a matching template from said document-template database, wherein said matching template corresponds to said type of the identity document, and wherein said template includes one or more data fields; iii) overlaying said at least one two-dimensional image frame with said matching template, wherein each data field demarcates a respective data region of said overlaid image frame; iv) selecting data regions, wherein said textual information is extracted from selected data regions; v) determining boundaries between text and background based on a minimum contrast between a character and other colored data on said image frame of the identity document, approximately within the boundaries of said selected data regions; vi) extracting black and white glyphs using at least a portion of said determined boundaries; and vii) applying said OCR routine on said black and white glyphs, thereby recognizing symbols and characters.