Harry Garland

High accuracy optical character recognition using neural networks with centroid dithering

Optical character recognition (OCR) refers to a process whereby printed documents are transformed into ASCII files for the purpose of compact storage, editing, fast retrieval, and other file manipulations through the use of a computer. The recognition stage of an OCR process is made difficult by added noise, image distortion, and the various character typefaces, sizes, and fonts that a document may have. In this study a neural network approach is introduced to perform high accuracy recognition on multi-size and multi-font characters; a novel centroid-dithering training process with a low noise-sensitivity normalization procedure is used to achieve high accuracy results. The study consists of two parts. The first part focuses on single size and single font characters, and a two-layered neural network is trained to recognize the full set of 94 ASCII character images in 12-pt Courier font. The second part trades accuracy for additional font and size capability, and a larger two-layered neural network is trained to recognize the full set of 94 ASCII character images for all point sizes from 8 to 32 and for 12 commonly used fonts. The performance of these two networks is evaluated based on a database of more than one million character images from the testing data set. >

Personal Computers Go to Work

Several small-scale computer applications illustrate the usefulness of microprocessor-based systems for a variety of industrial processes and business procedures.

Design Innovations in Personal Computers

There is little question that the current enthusiasm in personal computing was catalyzed by the introduction of the MITS Altair computer kit in January 1975. This computer kit demonstrated by its cost (originally less than

SESSION 7: Evaluation of Systems and Workflow Digital Radiography and Film Scanners: Automating the Transition to Filmless Radiology

400) that individuals could now afford a computer. And by its design the Altair established a standard bus structure for the personal computing industry.