Agency Reviews Patent Application Approval Request for 'Method of and Device for Identifying Direction of Characters in Image Block'

摘要

From the background information supplied by the inventors, news correspondents obtained the following quote: "When a user scans a stack of documents using a scanner or the like, every page of each document is placed upside up for an ideal input. With the documents placed upside up, the user can read the documents easily, and scanned images of the documents can be read by the user without adjusting their directions. However in a practical application, the documents to be scanned by the user tend to be placed alternatively at angles of 0.degree. (upside up) and 180.degree. (upside down) as well as 90.degree. and 270.degree. (transversely). It would be burdensome and time-consuming for the user to check and adjust the placement directions of the documents page-by-page prior to their scanning. Therefore the scanner is designed with a function of judging automatically the direction of a document image. With the function of judging automatically the direction of a document image, the scanned document image can be adjusted to be placed upside up to thereby alleviate the burden on the user and improve the efficiency of usage by the user.