Object Recognition in Structured and Random Environments: Locating Address Blocks on Mail Pieces

Engineering

Volume

Proceedings of the AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence, 5

Vision and Signal Understanding

A framework for determining special interest objects in images is presented in the context of determining destination address blocks on images of mail pieces such as letters, magazines, and parcels. The images range from those having a high degree of global spatial structure (e.g., carefully prepared letter mail envelopes which conform to specifications) to those with no structure (e.g., magazines with randomly pasted address labels). A method of planning the use of a large numbers of specialized tools is given. The control utilizes a dependency graph, knowledge rules, and a blackboard.