Appeal No. 1999-2027
Application No. 08/452,500
until the rays intersect farthest portions of the contour, the
intersections defining the outermost points. A calculating
means associates the outermost points with a series of contour
lines, and a segmenting means extracts feature parameters of
each contour line by determining whether the contour line is a
convex line segment, a concave line segment, or a hole
segment. Last, a matching means compares the feature
parameters with feature vectors of a dictionary to determine
the character pattern. Claim 1 is illustrative of the claimed
invention, and it reads as follows:
1. A pattern recognition system wherein a contour
tracer unit traces the contour of a two-dimensional character
pattern of a character scanned by an optical scanner and
stored in the form of a binary quantized signal in a two-
dimensional memory, comprising:
a first extraction means for extracting the outermost
points in a plurality of predetermined directions, said
outermost points being determined by extending a predetermined
number of rays, in a predetermined set of angular directions,
from a common starting point on said contour of said
character, until farthest portions of the contour of the
character are intersected by said rays at intersections,
respectively, said intersections defining said outermost
points, respectively;
calculating means including an information extracting
means for extracting information from an output signal of said
first extraction means and for associating said output signal
with a series of contour lines forming said contour, and a
segmenting means for segmenting, in the order of tracing of
2
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