Patent Document ID: 8358852
Application ID: 12059847
Patent Status: 1

Claim One:
1. A system for automatically identifying a form, the system comprising: a model database comprising model data identifying relative positions of vertical and horizontal lines for a plurality of form models having dimensions normalized for a selected scale; at least one processor; and a plurality of modules to execute on the at least one processor, the modules comprising: a preprocessing system to binarize, deskew, denoise, and despeckle an electronic form image of at least one document; a layout extractor to extract a frame of the form image by performing a morphological opening by reconstruction on the form image, the opening using a zero degree structuring element and a ninety degree structuring element, each structuring element having a size based on an average text size of average text in the form image; a model image generator to align, vectorize, and morphologically close the frame of the form image using the zero degree structuring element and the ninety degree structuring element to generate a model image; a model representation system to normalize dimensions of the model image for the selected scale, to generate a vertical projection profile of the normalized model image, to determine relative positions of vertical lines of the normalized model image from the vertical projection profile, to generate a horizontal projection profile of the normalized model image, to determine relative positions of horizontal lines of the normalized model image from the horizontal projection profile, and to generate an array with the relative positions of vertical lines and the relative positions of horizontal lines; and a matching system to: for each of the plurality of form models, align the relative positions of vertical lines of the normalized model image with closest corresponding relative positions of the vertical lines of the form model; for each of the plurality of form models, align the relative positions of horizontal lines of the normalized model image with closest corresponding relative positions of the horizontal lines of the form model; for each of the plurality of form models, compare the aligned relative positions of vertical lines of the normalized model image to the corresponding relative positions of vertical lines of the form model to determine a number of vertical line gaps between the model image and the form model, each vertical line gaps number indicating a location where at least one vertical line of the normalized model image does not have a corresponding vertical line in the form model; for each of the plurality of form models, compare the aligned relative positions of the horizontal lines of the normalized model image to the corresponding relative positions of horizontal lines of the form model to determine a number of horizontal line gaps between the model image and the form model, each horizontal line gaps number indicating a location where at least one horizontal line of the normalized model image does not have a corresponding horizontal line in the form model; for each of the plurality of form models, determine a first Euclidean norm between the aligned relative positions of the vertical lines of the normalized model image and the corresponding relative positions of vertical lines of the form model; for each of the plurality of form models, determine a second Euclidean norm between the aligned relative positions of horizontal lines of the normalized model image and the corresponding relative positions of horizontal lines of the form model; determine a first smallest distance from the first Euclidean norms; determine a second smallest distance from the second Euclidean norms; determine a smallest vertical line gaps number from the vertical line gaps numbers; determine a smallest horizontal line gaps number from the horizontal line gaps numbers; and select a particular form model from the plurality of form models, the particular form model having the first smallest distance, the second smallest distance, the smallest vertical line gaps number, and the smallest horizontal line gaps number.