Fast CJK character recognition

1. A method for facilitating recognition of glyph-based characters in an electronic image, the electronic image including representations of glyph-based characters, the method comprising:

identifying a line of glyph-based character representations in the electronic image;

isolating a plurality of glyph-based character representations from the line of glyph-based character representations;

loading a set of glyph-based character patterns into a computer memory;

loading the plurality of glyph-based character representations into the computer cache; and

recognizing the plurality of glyph-based character representations as a batch using the set of glyph-based character patterns of the computer memory while one or more of the plurality of character representations are in the computer cache.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein the plurality of glyph-based character representations is whole line of glyph-based character representations.

3. The method of claim 1 , wherein the plurality of glyph-based character representations is a part of a line of glyph-based character representations.

4. The method of claim 1 , wherein isolating the plurality of glyph-based character representations includes:

detecting character gaps in the line of glyph-based character representations;

creating a histogram of distances for the detected character gaps;

constructing a graph according to the detected character gaps;

assigning a penalty to arcs of the graph wherein the penalty is based in part on the histogram of distances; and

selecting a path in the graph associated with the character cells based on said penalty and arcs of the graph.

5. The method of claim 4 , wherein the graph is a linear division graph (LDG), which is constructed by performing steps including:

isolating values substantially near maxima values in the histogram of distances, wherein the isolated values are associated with respective detected character gaps;

creating arcs for each detected character gap;

assigning a penalty to the arcs;

creating paths for the LDG;

calculating aggregate penalties for each path associated with the LDG based on the penalties assigned to the arcs; and

selecting a desired path from among the paths associated with the LDG based on the aggregate penalties associated with the paths.

6. The method of claim 4 , wherein the character gap is a 4-connected path.

7. The method of claim 4 , wherein the desired path is a path associated with a smallest value of absolute values of the aggregate penalties.

8. The method of claim 4 , wherein the method further comprises:

determining whether the line of glyph-based character representations includes non-CJK characters by detecting whether any of the arcs associated with the desired path have been assigned a second type penalty.

9. The method of claim 1 , wherein the set of glyph-based character patterns is a subset of a macro-set of glyph-based character patterns, wherein the macro-set of glyph-based character patterns are a set of glyph-based character patterns in a storage medium of a device performing said method.

10. The method of claim 1 , wherein the computer memory is a network-accessible random access memory.

11. The method of claim 1 , wherein the computer memory is a random access memory of a device performing the method.

12. A device for detecting the boundaries of characters in an electronic image, the electronic image including representations of characters, the device comprising:

a processor; and

a memory configured with processor-executable instructions which, when executed by the processor, implement a method, the method comprising:

identifying a line of glyph-based character representations in the electronic image;

isolating a plurality of glyph-based character representations;

loading a set of character patterns into the memory;

loading the plurality of glyph-based character representations into the cache; and

recognizing the plurality of glyph-based character representations with the set of character patterns while one or more of the plurality of glyph-based character representations are in the cache.

13. The device of claim 12 , wherein isolating the first plurality of glyph-based character representations includes:

detecting character gaps in the line of glyph-based character representations;

creating a histogram of distances for the detected character gaps; and

constructing a linear division graph (LDG) according to the detected character gaps by performing steps including:

isolating values substantially near maxima values in the histogram of distances, wherein the isolated values are associated with respective detected character gaps;

creating arcs for each detected character gap;

assigning a penalty to the arcs;

creating paths associated with the LDG;

calculating aggregate penalties for each path associated with the LDG based on the penalties assigned to the arcs; and

selecting a desired path from among the paths associated with the LDG based on the aggregate penalties associated with the paths.

14. The device of claim 13 , wherein creating the histogram of distances for the detected character gaps includes:

[1] setting a window width for the line of glyph-based character representations;

[2] orienting the window at a current target location associated with the line of glyph-based character representations;

[3] using the detected character gaps, creating a histogram for the window; and

[4] repeating steps [1], [2] and [3] for each identified gap.

15. The device of claim 13 , wherein the desired path is a path associated with a smallest value of absolute values of the aggregate penalties.

16. The device of claim 12 , wherein the assigning of a penalty to the arcs includes assigning a first type penalty or a second type penalty to a respective arc based upon a position of the arc relative to a designated region in the histogram.

17. One or more physical non-transitory computer accessible media encoded with instructions for performing a method, the method comprising:

identifying a line of glyph-based character representations in the electronic image;

isolating a plurality of glyph-based character representations;

loading a set of glyph-based character patterns into a computer memory;

loading the plurality of glyph-based character representations into the computer cache; and

recognizing the plurality of glyph-based character representations with the set of glyph-based character patterns while one or more of the plurality of glyph-based character representations are in the computer cache.

18. The one or more physical non-transitory computer accessible media of claim 17 , wherein the method further comprises:

detecting character gaps in the line of glyph-based character representations;

creating a histogram of distances for the detected character gaps;

constructing a graph according to the detected character gaps;

assigning a penalty to arcs of the graph wherein the penalty is based in part on the histogram of distances; and

selecting a path in the graph associated with the character cells based on said penalty and arcs of the graph.

19. The one or more physical non-transitory computer accessible media of claim 18 , wherein the graph is a linear division graph (LDG), which is constructed by performing steps including:

isolating values substantially near maxima values in the histogram of distances, wherein the isolated values are associated with respective detected character gaps;

creating arcs for each detected character gap;

assigning a penalty to the arcs;

creating paths for the LDG;

calculating aggregate penalties for each path associated with the LDG based on the penalties assigned to the arcs; and

selecting a desired path from among the paths associated with the LDG based on the aggregate penalties associated with the paths.