Table recognition apparatus

Claim 2

A table recognition apparatus for recognizing a table image having both a character image and a ruled line image, said table recognition apparatus comprising: image separating means for separating characters from ruled lines in said table image; means for acquiring a rectangular area containing a character in the character image; means for producing a threshold from the dimensions of said acquired rectangular area; character block extracting means for using said threshold to extract character blocks from the character image separated by said image separating means; first character block extending means for extending each of said character blocks up to the nearest one of the ruled lines; means for computing a horizontal and a vertical distribution of character blocks to keep each extended character block from overlapping with other ones of the character blocks; second character block extending means for further extending the extended character blocks to align the edges of the extended character blocks; row extracting means for extracting rows of said table image based on the distance between the extended character blocks; and column extracting means for extracting columns of said table image based on the distance between the extended character blocks.

Claim 3

A table recognition apparatus for recognizing a table image having both a character image and a ruled line image, said table recognition apparatus comprising: image separating means for separating characters from ruled lines in said table image; character block extracting means for extracting character blocks from the character image separated by said image separating means; rectangular frame extracting means for extracting a rectangle composed of ruled lines, from the ruled line image separated by said image separating means; means for converting the extracted ruled lines into a plurality of horizontal and vertical vectors; means for comparing said horizontal and vertical vectors to a threshold angle; component frame extracting means for extracting as a component frame a rectangular frame including at most one character block; means for computing a horizontal and vertical distribution of character blocks first character block extending means for using said computed horizontal and vertical distribution of character blocks to extend a target character block up to the nearest one of the ruled lines; second character block extending means for further extending the extended character blocks to align the edges of the extended character blocks; row extracting means for extracting rows of said table image based on the distance between the extended character blocks; and column extracting means for extracting columns of said table image based on the distance between the extended character blocks.

Claim 4

A table recognition apparatus for recognizing a table image having both a character image and a ruled line image, said table recognition apparatus comprising: image separating means for separating characters from ruled lines in said table image; character block extracting means for extracting character blocks from the character image separated by said image separating means; rectangular frame extracting means for extracting a rectangle composed of ruled lines, from the ruled line image separated by said image separating means; means for converting the extracted ruled lines into a plurality of horizontal and vertical vectors; means for comparing said horizontal and vertical vectors to a threshold angle; component frame extracting means for extracting as a component frame a rectangular frame including at most one character block; means for computing a horizontal and vertical distribution of character blocks first character block extending means for using said computed horizontal and vertical distribution of character blocks to extend a target character block up to the nearest one of the ruled lines; second character block extending means for further extending the extended character blocks to align the edges of the extended character blocks; row extracting means for extracting rows of said table image based on the distance between the extended character blocks; and column extracting means for extracting columns of said table image based on the distance between the extended character blocks.

Claim 5

A table recognition apparatus for recognizing a table image having both a character image and a ruled line image, said table recognition apparatus comprising: image separating means for separating characters from ruled lines in said table image; first character block extending means for extending each of said character blocks up to the nearest one of the ruled lines; means for computing a horizontal and a vertical distribution of character blocks to keep each extended character block from overlapping with other ones of the character blocks; second character block extending means for further extending the extended character blocks to align the edges of the extended character blocks; character block normalizing means for normalizing each character block based on the distance between the extended character blocks; character block interpolating means for detecting a virtual character block that overlaps the character blocks normalized by said character block normalizing means; row extracting means for extracting rows based on the distance between the character blocks interpolated by said character block interpolating means; and column extracting means for extracting columns based on the distance between the character blocks interpolated by said character block interpolating means.

Claim 6

A table recognition apparatus for recognizing a table image having both a character image and a ruled line image, said table recognition apparatus comprising: image separating means for separating characters from ruled lines in said table image; first character block extending means for extending each of said character blocks up to the nearest one of the ruled lines; means for computing a horizontal and a vertical distribution of character blocks to keep each extended character block from overlapping with other ones of the character blocks; second character block extending means for further extending the extended character blocks to align the edges of the extended character blocks; character block normalizing means for normalizing each character block based on the distance between the extended character blocks; character block interpolating means for detecting a virtual character block that overlaps the character blocks normalized by said character block normalizing means; row extracting means for extracting rows based on the distance between the character blocks interpolated by said character block interpolating means; and column extracting means for extracting columns based on the distance between the character blocks interpolated by said character block interpolating means.