Capture Profile: Image Processing

Overview

 

Image Processing can be applied to a variety of workflow steps to enhance image quality and readability for OCR and other data extraction processes. The Image Processing feature tunes a variety of available image enhancement processes to your unique needs, and then performs them during the given workflow step.

 

NOTE: Using similar options provided with a scanner may process slightly faster as they occur at the hardware level and should be tried first.

Image Processing Profiles

On the toolbar of the right of the main areas, Administrators can Add, Edit, Copy, Delete, or Move Up / Down their Image Processing Profiles as it suits their business needs. When loading an image processing profile for use in a QA Auto Processing Workflow Step, or a Migration pre-processing step, a load screen similar to the one below will appear, where Administrators can select from their list of Image Processing Profiles premade in this area:

 

 

Profile Name

Enter a unique but easily identifiable name for the profile being configured. Numerous profiles can exist for varying conditions.

 

Image Processing Settings

 

NOTE: In some Migration workflow step pre-processing tabs and other PSIcapture product areas, the Options and Trigger tabs may not be available. Use the Capture Profile Root section identified above in instances where these tabs are necessary for your workflow.

 

 

Add -->

Click to Add a new profile or Edit to make changes to an existing profile.

<-- Remove 

Copy the selected Image Processing Profile.

Move Up

Move the selected profile up in the list

Move Down

Move the selected profile down in the list

Configure

Configure the selected Image Processing Profiles in detail.

The user may select any of the appropriate image processing functions by adding them to the right side. It is highly recommended that the “Use default ordering” be checked.

Use default ordering (Recommended)

While the user is able to move each command up and down, it is recommended that each command be processed in the default ordering to aid speed and accuracy.

 

Image Enhancement Commands

Advanced Border Removal

Automatically removes black/white borders from an image using a sophisticated object detection algorithm.

 

 

Maximum/Minimum Border Thickness

Set in pixels the amount of thickness range. Any blank space above the maximum will be removed, below the minimum will remain.

 

Binarize

Converts a grayscale or color image to black and white using the selected Binarize method.

 

 

Brightness

Modifies the Brightness of a grayscale or color image. Move the slider toward the positive side to yield brighter images.

 

 

Border Removal

Removes solid borders from images. (do not use if using Advance Border Removal)

 

 

Edges to Remove

Choose to perform border removal on individual or all sides of the image.

 

Color Dropout

Enables the user to discard specific color(s) from color images. Example: useful when scanning scantron forms.

 

 

Dropout Colors

Choose “Drop Specific Colors” to specify color(s). Choose “Drop All Colors” will essentially binarize the image.

Specific Colors

User can select various colors to add to the list via a dropdown list containing some common colors or sample custom colors by clicking ICON.

Color Matching

Choose between Hue/Value, Hue/Saturation and Saturation/Value.

 

Contrast

Either automatically using the built in algorithm or manually using the slide bar provided to modify the Contrast of a grayscale or color image. Move the slider toward positive side to increase the difference between light and dark regions of an image.

 

 

Crop

Allows an image to be either manually cropped or automatically cropped.

 

 

Auto Crop

Threshold allows a value to be set via the slider to adjust the amount of blank region on a page being removed.

Manual Crop

Allows users to set a region on an image to be cropped. Fields “X” and “Y” denotes the coordinates at the top left corner in pixels. “Width” and “Height” denotes the size in pixels of the resulting image. NOTE: The “X” and “Y” coordinates will change depending on the resolution (DPI) of the image being captured. Do not use this option if capturing images with varying resolutions.

 

 

White Margin Crop

Will crop an image by removing solid color borders around the edge of an image.

 

 

 

Select Region - Use the mouse by point to the top left of the region desired then click and hold the left mouse button, drag to the opposite corner of the desired region and then let go of the left mouse button. A red outlined region will appear as below. The location and size of the zone will appear at the bottom of “Region Selector”.

 

 - Select Template Image to load a sample image. NOTE: this image must have the same resolution as the image that will be captured later in order for the region location and size to be accurate.

 - Save Region populates location and size values in the corresponding fields in the “Crop Settings” window.

 - Zoom in

 - Zoom Out

 

Deshade

Reduces small black regions within the image.

 

 

Minimum Region Size

Set width and height for the smallest region allowed.

Processing Speed

Select between Normal, Fast (default), Faster, or Fastest based on emphasis of speed versus accuracy.

 

De-skew

Automatically straightens an image.

 

• Minimum angle to deskew - Set the minimum angle of skew for which automatic skewing will then apply.
• Maximum angle to deskew - Set the maximum angle of skew for which automatic skewing will then apply.
• Background fill color - Fill the background after performing a deskew with this color.
• Image coverage (%) - The percentage of the image to cover with background fill color (if applicable).
• Detection type - Choose from Text or Image, depending on the document type.
• Text direction - Choose from Horizontal, Vertical, or Both for the orientation of the text on the page.

 

Despeckle

This command cleans the image of small speckles by using either a Standard (1 x 1 pixel), Aggressive (3 x 3) or custom filter.

 

 

Flip

Flips an image either horizontally or vertically.

 

 

Hole Punch Removal

This is used when scanning/importing pages that had been hole punched thus leaving small black circles near the edges. This command will fill in those black dots with white.

 

• Edges to Check - Select one or multiple edges to process.
• Maximum/Minimum Hole Diameter - Displayed in pixels, black marks larger than the maximum diameter and smaller than the minimum diameter will not be affected.
• Edge Search Area - Search this percentage of the image height and width to determine the region where holes may be.

 

Invert

This command is used to convert images with white text and black background to black text and white background, or vice versa.

 

Line Removal / Reconstruction

This command is used to remove lines and may be especially helpful during zone OCR.

 

 

Options

Mode - Choose from one of the following:

• Remove lines - Remove detected lines with the parameters below.
• Reconstruct lines - Reconstruct detected lines with the parameters below.
• Reconstruct forms - Reconstruct the forms of boxes with the parameters below.

Horizontal Lines

Remove horizontal lines - Select to remove horizontal lines when detected.

Use optimized straight line algorithm - The straight line algorithm will attempt to determine a consistent occurrence of spacing between lines and optimize accordingly.

Minimum Line Length - Set in pixels the minimum length that should determine a line. This will prevent characters such as “1” or “/” to be removed unintentionally.

Maximum Line Gap - Set in pixels the amount of space between the lines. Only lines appearing farther than this setting will be removed.

Curvature - Some lines within your document may have curves. Set the maximum degree of the curvature to be detected.

Vertical lines

Remove vertical lines - Select to remove horizontal lines when detected.

Use optimized straight line algorithm - The straight line algorithm will attempt to determine a consistent occurrence of spacing between lines and optimize accordingly.

Minimum Line Length - Set in pixels the minimum length that should determine a line. This will prevent characters such as “1” or “/” to be removed unintentionally.

Maximum Line Gap - Set in pixels the amount of space between the lines. Only lines appearing farther than this setting will be removed.

Curvature - Some lines within your document may have curves. Set the maximum degree of the curvature to be detected.

 

Morphological Filters

 

 

Processes captured images with one of the following filters:

• Dilation - Used to smooth small dark regions tending to enhance black features in the image. (Darken)
• Erosion - Used to smooth small light regions tending to reduce black features in the image. (Lighten)
• Open - The dilation of the erosion of the image used to reduce small black regions within the image. (Deshade)
• Close - The erosion of the dilation of the image used to reduce small white regions within the image. (Light Thicken)
• Boundary Extraction (B/W only) - Perform a boundary detection/extraction on a binary image. This will generate an outline of the foreground features of the input image.
• Thinning (B/W only) - Reduces the geometric size of an image, leaving only a skeletonized frame in its place.

 

 

Resize

Allows image to be resized to a set of user defined dimensions.

 

 

Resize Mode

Allows Manual Resize, Maintain Aspect Ratio Using Width, or Maintain Aspect Ratio Using Height

New Size

Enter new width and height dimensions in pixels.

 

Rotate

Automatically rotates an image clockwise by 90-degree increments or by the user specified number of degrees. The front and back (if existing) can be configured independently.

 

 

Options

NOTE: This tab is only available under the main Configuration Page of your Capture Profile:

 

 

 

Profile Options

Page File Action

Replace main page image is the only option.

Page File Tag

This option is unavailable.

Profile Run Mode

Choose Always run, Only run when triggered, or Disabled

Pages to Process

Choose which page or pages to process. NOTE: Separate multiple pages with commas. Leaving this option blank will cause ALL pages to have this process run on them.

 

Alternate Page Image Naming

NOTE: Alternate Image support is only available when running Image Processing in QA Auto Processing.

Naming Method

Choose to the alternate image using Page Name, Trigger Value, or Index Field.

Index Field Name

Specify index field name when choosing index field as a naming method.

 

Region Processing

Limit processing to region on page

Check to limit processing to a specific region, otherwise processing will be done to the entire page.

NOTE: Only applies to image processing commands that support region processing - It's important to note that attempting to limit a region on an image processing command that is meant to apply to an entire page, such as Binarize, can yield undesired results.

Region to Process

Allows users to set a region on an image to be cropped. Fields “X” and “Y” denotes the coordinates at the top left corner in pixels. “Width” and “Height” denotes the size in pixels of the resulting image. NOTE: The “X” and “Y” coordinates will change depending on the resolution (DPI) of the image being captured. Do not use this option if capturing images with varying resolutions.

Select Region

Use the mouse by point to the top left of the region desired then click and hold the left mouse button, drag to the opposite corner of the desired region and then let go of the left mouse button. A red outlined region will appear as below. The location and size of the zone will appear at the bottom of “Region Selector”.

 

 

 - Select Template Image to load a sample image. NOTE: this image must have the same resolution as the image that will be captured later in order for the region location and size to be accurate.

 - Save Region populates location and size values in the corresponding fields in the “Crop Settings” window.

 - Zoom in

 - Zoom Out

 

Trigger

NOTE: Triggers only run in the Quality Assurance module.

 

 

Profile Trigger

Trigger

• No Image Processing Trigger – The trigger is disabled.
• Activate on Any Barcode – Any barcode read will cause activation of this profile.
• Activate on specific Barcode values and patterns – Regular expressions can be used to create a desired pattern. If a barcode is read and matches the pattern activation of this profile will occur.
• Activate on any Patch Code – Any patch code will cause activation of this profile.
• Activate on a specific Patch Code – Choose from patch code types I, II, III, IV, VI, or T to activate this profile.
• Activate on a populated Index Field – Choose a field from the Field Name drop down box and if this field contains data at the time Image Processing is run, it will cause activation of this profile.
• Activate on specific Index Field values and patterns – Choose a field from the Field Name drop down box and if this field contains data that matches the values and/or patterns at the time Image Processing is run, it will cause activation of this profile.

Zone to search

This option is unavailable.

Field Name

Specify an index field containing the value(s) in the triggering event.

Values to Activate On

Value(s) added are stored here for viewing and/or editing with Edit, Remove, or Clear All.

Add Multiple

Allows users to add multiple activate patterns at once. Each line is considered a new pattern.

Help

View regular expressions symbols for pattern matching.

 

 

Match Case

Enabling this option makes all the Values to Activate case sensitive.

Example Expression:

 (?i)(?<=Invoice Number: )\d+

Invoice Number: 12345
Invoice Date: 10/10/2012

 

Preview

Load an original image (shown on the left) via “Select Image”. Click “Preview” to apply image processing commands as defined in Settings. The result will be shown on the right. Above figure is an example of manual cropping.