Patent Document ID: 20120219220
Application ID: 13467873
Patent Status: 0

Claim One:
1. A method of preprocessing an image for optical character recognition (OCR), wherein the image comprises a plurality of columns, each column of the plurality of columns comprising text, the method comprising: determining a plurality of components associated with the text, wherein a component comprises a series of connected pixels; calculating a line height and a column spacing associated with the plurality of components; associating at least one component of the plurality of components with a column of the plurality of columns based on at least one of the line height and the column spacing; calculating a first set of characteristic parameters for each column of the plurality of columns; merging the plurality of components of each column of the plurality of columns based on the first set of characteristic parameters to form at least one of at least one sub-word and at least one word; merging a first plurality of words, subwords, or a combination thereof to be processed as a first region; and merging a second plurality of words, subwords, or a combination thereof to be processed as a second region wherein at least a portion of the second region vertically overlaps at least a portion of the first region.