We are currently researching ways of enhancing image quality prior to submission to OCR. The OCR engine we are currently utilizing is the Scansoft API from Nuance (v15). We were researching the Lead Tools but have since decided to look elsewhere. The licensing costs associated with Lead Tools is just too great. To start with we are looking for simple image enhancement features such as: deskewing, despeckling, line removal, punch hole removal, sharpening, etc. We are running a mix of .NET and Java software, but java solution would be preferred.
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1152answers:
7
A:
Not sure if this would be quite up to the standards that you guys would need, but perhaps you should look at some of the Paint.Net APIs. I don't know how easy it would be to extract their image processing algorithms for use in your project, but I believe they do some of the things you are looking for. Plus it is an open source project with an MIT License, so it should be pretty friendly for business use.
ckramer
2008-09-27 02:02:02
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Maybe JMagick, it is an open source Java interface of ImageMagick. It is implemented in the form of a thin Java Native Interface (JNI) layer into the ImageMagick API. It's licensed under the LGPL so it shouldn't be a problem license wise.
verbalshadow
2008-09-27 02:21:33
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Kofax is good for pre-processing, but for the types of cleanup you are talking about may be overkill unless the images are really bad. Unless your specialty is in image processing, I'd recommend working with a provider that does the image cleanup and the OCR so you can focus on the value you actually add.
We license the OCR development kit from ABBYY (ABBY SDK) and have found it to be superb for both image processing and OCR. The API is quite extensive, and the sample apps, help and support have been beyond impressive. I definitely recommend taking a look.
Kevin Day
2008-09-27 03:31:09
+1
A:
Disclaimer: I work for Atalasoft
We have those functions and run-time royalty-free licensing for .NET.
http://www.atalasoft.com/products/dotimage/
We also have OCR components including a .NET wrapper for Abbyy, Tesseract and others and Searchable PDF generation (image on top of text in a PDF)
Lou Franco
2008-10-01 17:58:05
A:
Depends on the number and quality of the original images. Managed code and imaging tool kits will work but it's not always the best solution if you haved several million images to process. For small batches and tight budgets, I agree with the previous posters that projects like Aforge, Paint.NET, and other open source computer vision libraries will do the trick. Of course, you are on your own if the results are not improving... At least this let's you put everything you need under one application for a low cost.
If you are processing several hundred thousand images a month, then I would suggest you divide up the process into smaller workflow step and tweak each one until your cost per image gets as close to zero as you can. You will find that the OCR results rise quickly at first and then level off sooner than you expected. (I'm not a big fan of OCR but it has its place)
I use commercial Windows product from Recogniform to process and clean up the images prior to OCR in a batch mode using scripts adjusted for various kinds of images. If an image fails QC or is rejected by the OCR engine, it is "repaired" by hand using a custom .NET application built with Atalasoft's toolkit. Batch process everything and only touch what fails.