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Legacy - Optical Character Recognition (OCR) homepage
The Image Group conducted research for nearly a decade in areas of Optical Character Recognition (OCR) over the period of 1989 through 1998. Much of the focus at that time was on Hand Print Recognition from forms, which also included elements of Document Image Understanding. The Image Group's work in this area was in partnership with the IRS and the Bureau of Census, having direct impact and support to tax modernization efforts and the 1990 and 2000 decennial censuses. Advances in OCR were spurred on over this period as a result of increasing computation power of computers and from break-throughs in new generations of neural network and machine learning algorithms. The technology and market once again plateaued, and the Image Group transitioned and consolidated it focus onto biometric technologies.
Publications relating to the Image Group's OCR work
A page containing information from the Census & NIST sponsored OCR conferences.
The greatest legacy of the Image Group's OCR work is the public domain form-based hand print recognition technologies called (HSFSYS) downloadable here.