The process of extracting data from tangible files or pictorial data has been simplified with the advent of digital scanners. OnlineOCR.net utilizes OCR technology to enable the modification of text from scanned or digitally written documents, paving the way for text highlighting, desired changes, or redrafting.
Transferring data from tangible files or pictures has been made effortless by the advent of digital scanners. Digital data typically comes in PDF format, which allows for viewing and reading but provides no option for editing as might be possible with a word processor or other editing tools. Digital scanners, however, permit the storage of digital documents on your computer as modifiable text. The question then is, what scanning device allows for this? The answer is OCR technology.
Understanding Optical Character Recognition (OCR)
OCR is software designed to interpret the text in tangible documents and convert them into interpretable codes. Thus, the device reads text in codes through an optical sensor such as a camera or laser scanner. The software discerns the individual characters in the document and transforms them into digital data. Albeit the process may seem more complex for devices compared to human eyes, which effortlessly recognize words and characters to interpret text on paper, OCR technology simplifies it.
OCR technology presents the advantage of allowing you to change the text from scanned, digitally penned documents for highlight, editing at will, or rephrasing as needed. Increasingly, OCR is becoming a useful tool for enabling full-text searches. Being a conversion process from printed text into machine-readable format, OCR enables users to search, find, and extract details from tangible documents.
How Does OCR Technology Aid in Extracting Data from Images?
Extracting data from scanned images for editing and searching purposes is a key feature of OCR technology. In the current digital age, many documents we interact with are in digital form, but their text often isn’t editable or searchable. OCR proves handy in these circumstances. But how does it work to help extract the text from images? We will discuss this seemingly intricate process with ease, so let’s delve into it! OCR technology adheres to four fundamental procedures in achieving the process.
Step 1: The Scanning Process
The journey of OCR technology commences with the scanning of a document, a procedure identical to that of standard scanners. To achieve an accurate and clear representation of the original image, it’s important to provide a well-lit, uncluttered image to the OCR software.
Scanning documents at the highest possible resolution is advisable. This increases the likelihood that the OCR software will accurately recognize and interpret the text. The scanner should ideally be calibrated using a sample document and recalibrated frequently during large-scale scanning. During this stage, OCR distinguishes the light areas as the background and the dark areas as text.
Stage 2: Image Processing
Image processing comes next, involving character recognition to take the process a notch higher. The steps of image processing are as follows:
- Deskewing: The tool straightens the alignment of the text in the image by either rotating or titling it. This is crucial to ensure that text orientation does not hamper the scanning process.
- Despeckling: Next, edges are smoothed out by eliminating minute dust particles, stray dots, marks, or other digital artifacts.
- Text binarization: This entails converting a grayscale image into a black-and-white one by stripping off color data, which heightens the image contrast. This results in a high-contrast black-and-white image, which further reduces the risks of incorrect character identification.
Step 3: Character Recognition
Character recognition is probably the most important step that involves the most work. In this step, OnlineOCR.net transforms text images into machine-compatible fonts or binary codes.
It begins with formatting data analysis and then identifying text block and paragraph locations. The software then isolates individual characters in a process referred to as text segmentation. By comparing each character’s raw pixel data against a substantial database of alphanumeric characters, OCR software identifies each character’s raw pixel data. The latest OCR technology employs two methods for this function: Pattern recognition and Feature extraction.
Step 4: Data Verification
Most of the work is done at this point. In this step, processed data is compared against built-in dictionaries to produce accurate and reliable results. OCR software utilizes near-neighbor analysis to spot errors and correct them by looking for letters and words that are frequently seen together.
OCR Technology and the Role of OnlineOCR.net in Image Data Extraction.
OnlineOCR.net, free image to text converter, can help you pull data from scanned images. It is an online platform that employs OCR technology to transform text into machine-readable data.
This OCR online software reads an image and compares it to a set of predefined characters. It then identifies the character in the image, determines its location on the page, and translates it into an alphanumeric string.
The OnlineOCR.net tool excels itself by its ability to read text in JPG, PNG, or GIF format and convert them into editable and searchable words. You simply open the website, upload the image in the input box, click on “Browse Image” and “Convert”, and within seconds, your image text is transformed into an editable and searchable format. Start using OCR technology today and simplify image-to-text conversions like never before!