Patent Document ID: 5546479
Application ID: 08535322
Patent Status: 1

Claim One:
1. A method for producing a signal which is indicative of an inclination of an image of a physical object that contains information thereon, said method comprising the steps of: (a) generating an image signal by using an electronic image generator to create said image of said physical object, wherein said information is stored in character lines, each character line containing characters therein; (b) transforming said image signal into a first expanded image signal, which represents an expanded image of said physical object, by successively expanding said image of said physical object Ndil times in both a horizontal direction and a vertical direction, wherein Ndil is the minimum number of expansions required so as to cause said characters within said character lines to fuse with one another; (c) determining, in accordance with the expanded image signal produced in step (b), whether said character lines are formed in a substantially vertical direction or a substantially horizontal direction; (d) transforming, in accordance with the determination made in step (c), said image signal into a second expanded image signal, which represents a second expanded image of said physical object, by successively expanding said image of said physical object a predetermined number of times in one of a horizontal direction and a vertical direction, which depends on the determination made in step (c); (e) determining inclination factors for predetermined zones within said second expanded image, wherein each said predetermined zone is a separate section of said second expanded image; (f) determining, based upon said inclination factors, the inclination of said image of said physical object with reference to said determination made in step (c); (g) transforming said second expanded image signal into an inclination signal, said inclination signal being based upon said determination made in step (f); and (h) reproducing, in a human readable format, said information contained on said physical object in accordance with said inclination signal produced in step (g), so as to produce the information in an aligned manner.