RESEARCH IN JAPANESE OCR

Recognition of Japanese machine-printed documents poses several challenges. The variation of document layout styles, vertical and horizontal text alignment, mixed pitch characters, and the large character set size (over 3000 in everyday use), contribute to the complexity of Japanese OCR system design. Variations in font styles and the structurally complex character set are other contributing factors in design. After a brief overview of previous Japanese OCR research, we outline the directions of research in Japanese OCR. To illustrate these issues we present details in the design and performance of a Japanese OCR system developed at CEDAR.