Application of Artificial Neural Network Model for Optical, Character

Recognition

Nallasamy Mani’ and Bala Srinivasan’

‘Department of Electrical and Computer Systems Engineering
2
Department of Computer Technology
Monash University, Caulfield Campus
Victoria 3145, Australia

ABSTRACT system. Several algorithms for character

Many artificial neural network models
(ANN’S)have been proposed to mimic the
human brain in solving problems involving
human-like intelligence. An application of
artificial neural network approach for optical
character recognition (OCR) is discussed in
this paper. We examine a simple pattern-
recognition system using artificial neural
network to simulate character recognition. A
simple feed-forward neural network model
has been trained with different set of noisy
data. The back-propagation method is used
for learning in neural network.
1. INTRODUCTION
Optical character recognition (OCR) is a
process of converting a printed document or
scanned page into ASCII characters that a
computer can recognise. Computer systems
equipped with such an OCR system improve
the speed of input operation, decrease some
possible human errors and enable compact
storage, fast retrieval and other file
manipulations. The range of applications
include postal code recognition, automatic
data entry into large administrative systems,
banking, automatic cartography and reading
devices for blind.
Accuracy, flexibility and speed are the main
features that characterise a good OCR
recognition have been developed based on
feature selection [2,3]. Some of them have
been found commercialliy viable and have
gone into production like OmniPage,
Wordscan, TypeReader etc [l]. The
performance of the systems have been
constrained by the dependence on font, size
and orientation. The reco’gnition rate in these
algorithms depends on the choice of features.
Most of the existing algorithms involve
extensive processing on the image before the
features are extracted that results in increased
computational time.
In this paper, we discuss a neural network
based method for character recognition that
would effectively reduces the image
processing time while miaintaining efficiency
and versatility. We also discuss an
enhancement to the previous approach for
character recognition. The parallel
computational capabilities of neural networks
ensures a high speed of recognition which is
critical to a commercial environment. Neural
network approach have been used for
character recognition [ 1,473, but a complete
system which encompasses all the features of
a practical OCR system is yet to be realised.
The key factors involved in the
implementation are: an optimal selection of
features which categorically defines the
details of the characters, the number of
features and a low image processing time.

0-7803-4053-1/97/$10.00 @ 1997 IEEE 251 7


2. NEURAL NETWORK
ARCHITECTUFU3
The architecture of a neural network
determines how a neural network transforms
its input into an output. This transformation
can be viewed as a computation. We have
implemented a multi-layer feed forward
neural network with one hidden layer as
shown in figure 1.
hidden
layer
n
line segments and smeared images. A pre-
processor is used to smooth the digitised
characters. Moreover, the system must be
able to handle touching characters,
proportional spacing, variable line spacing
and change of font style in the scanned text,
in addition to the problems of multi-fonts.
image acquisition J
mage pre-processing
I
[ feature extraction ]
neural networks
I I I

input features
BP classification

.
BP traning I[ results 1
Figure 2 System Block Diagram

weight 3.1. Feature Extraction

- connection
Figure 1 The Network Model
3. OCR SYSTEM DESIGN
The main functional modules in our OCR
systems are: image acquisition module, image
Pre-processing module, feature extraction
Feature extraction is the process of getting
information about an object or a group of
object in order to facilitate classification. This
is an important part in our system. The
character from the scanned image is
normalised from 60 X 60 pixel into 32 X 32
pixel as in figure 3.
60

a
module and neural network module. The r--7
block diagram -in Figure 2 shows these
modules. 6o

The main task of image acquisition module is U

to obtain text image from a scanner. It is 32
called ‘image’ because scanner inherently n
scans pixel of the text and not characters. The
input file format is PCX. When patterns are
scannedand digitised, the data may carry
I
U
a132

some unwanted noise. For example, a scanner

with low resolution may produce touching Figure 3

2518
The horizontal and vertical vectors (Vh and
Vv respectively) are added together to form
the input vector of the neural network.
Finaily, an input vector that contains 64
(horizontal + vertical) unique features of the
character is evaluated. A histogram is the
distribution of the pixel intensity values of an
image or portion of an image. It indicates the
overall brightness and contrast of an image.
Histogram techniques are used for automatic
processing of lines, words and characters
extraction in the sequence.

The erosion and dilation operations make the

object smaller and larger respectively.
Erosion makes an object smaller by removing
or eroding away the pixel on its edges.
Dilation makes an object larger by adding
pixel around its edges. Dilation technique is
used for extracting a word from the original
image (gray scale). Image dilation is applied
to make the characters in a word thicker until
they join together. The image erosion
techniques are used for extracting each
character from a word.
The advantage is to train the network with
user defined character sets, numerals and
even with other languages. Once the network
is trained it would create: an associated weight
of the particular training file. The systems has
been implemented usiing C++ and Turbo
vision. The performance of the system is
reported.
Learning rate = 0.45
-7
Error tolerance

0.07500
Iteration

4. ENHANCED MODEL 0.05000

0.02500
0.01000
An enhancement to our OCR system is an in- 0.00750
built training pattern editor and a better 0.00500 72
graphics user interface. The pattern editor is
very useful in creating the training data files. i"."""'"rI
0.00050

- Screen of Parrern Manoger

I 1
Input Pattern :Pattern 3 of 5
Learning rate = 0.90
"-1 . - I

0.02500
A m w Keys
Entn :
0.01 000
n: Crcatc noisy panem. 0.00750
q. Qm editing &is plrem.
0.00500

399
I530

0.0001

251 9

4. CONCLUSION
We have shown that artificial neural network
can be implemented successfully in optical
character recognition. The system has image
pre- and post processing modules for text
image. The experiment result shows
recognition rate is 70% for noisy data to upto
99% . Further work is initiated for multiple
font and size characters and hand written
character recognition.
2520
5. REFERENCES
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