CHARACTER RECOGNITION METHOD, CONVERSION METHOD AND CHARACTER RECOGNITION APPARATUS

摘要

PURPOSE: To improve accuracy for recognizing characters or symbols arranged in circular configuration by converting the circular expression of characters to linear configuration and generating the linear expression of characters. CONSTITUTION: When a section 10 has a compact disk or circular arrangement, serial numbers are circularly arranged around a hole at the center of the disk. The output of a video camera 12 is analyzed by a polar coordinate transformer 14 so that the arrangement of characters can be transformed from the circular arrangement around the hole at the center to the characters in linear order. Then, this linear order of characters is expressed as a matrix 14 (or the set of matrixes) expressing the respective characters. The matrix 14 is used as an input to a conventional neural network 20 a little. This conventional neural network 20 recognizes the plural characters or symbols from the prescribed groups of characters or symbols.