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Choice of OCR

dranakan

Hello,

I am evaluating different OCR to incorporate in Alfresco. The aim of these OCR is for me to get some fields from a paper (on a invoice for exemple). It would to generate a pdf and a other file with the value (name=bob, numberInvoice=23423, …). My softwares to tests are :
- Kofax
- eCopy
- Iris capture
- Adobe Capture

I'am looking for the cheapest. Have you got another OCR that you use in the same context ?

Now, I'am working with Adobe Capture, but I not able to extract the data in other file with the value (name=bob, numberInvoice=23423, …). Someone can explain me how to do ?

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Comments

jlabuelo

Hi there

we are investigating how to integrate a OCR software within our Alfresco application, I mean we have produced a wizard to produce a jpg file that now we would like to transform to a PDF with OCR and store it in our Alfresco repository.

Just saw your post about OCR and Alfresco, could you please let us know if you got something to work with any ot these softwares you mention.

I have readed also this article about an OCR software that can be installed with Alfresco, but needs to be done in Windows and we are using a Linux Ubuntu server.

http://wiki.alfresco.com/wiki/Tiger_OCR_integration

If you can share your thoughts with us we will really appreciate it.

Thanks a lot in advance

dranakan

Hello,

I think we can use the OCR in three differents ways in Alfresco :

1) Use a OCR Software (like Kofax, eCopy, …) on a workstation which create PDF (from TIFF) and put it in a directory of Alfresco -> My problem : Need a Workstation2) Use a OCR engine (like intelliant) in the code of Alfresco which convert TIFF to PDF. (to get field in the PDF, it's possible to extract a part of the Tiff and to send to the OCR engine) -> My problem : no Engine in cheap price (<600$) under Linux 3) Use a OCR engine (like TOCR transym) and others tools to create (ourself) a PDF (after adding in Alfresco) -> My problem : I don't know the time to develope it…
I would like to find a OCR engine (number two) in cheap prices but for the moment, I found nothing.

I continue to search….

zaizi

Have a look at this. http://code.google.com/p/tesseract-ocr/. I believe this integration has already been done. It can be configured in Alfresco through XML configuration with little or no Java code if you follow these steps http://www.howtoforge.com/ocr_with_tesseract_on_ubuntu704 using Alfresco's http://wiki.alfresco.com/wiki/Content_Transformations#ComplexContentTransformer.

dranakan

Hello Zaizi,

I have seen Tesseract (and Ocropus) during my research, but I have not try them because the tests that man can found on the web said that this OCR do not a good recognition and also because this OCR cannot generate a PDF (and keeping the layout, pictures).
(I would use an OCR engine to get Invoices and also to store for Record Management, I need a OCR that can reproduce exactly the original).

Have you tried Tessaract ? Did I wrong?

Thank you.

dranakan

Hi all,

We have used the Software ReadIris Pro to the OCR transformation. It's give good results but using an OCR software after scanning is a complicated step for users…

[size=150]All automatic[/size]
Now we want to do all automatic : the user scan, and it can read the PDF in Alfresco. I am looking about Abbyy and Kofax (waiting on the seller's responses). I would like to install this software on the Alfresco Server (Linux).

I am also looking about a scanner doing this OCR transformation, somebody knows this kind of product ?

[size=150]The OCR solution does[/size]
Be able to remove empty pages, scanning duplex printing, and also be able to interprate separation pages (if a document do more 1 page). I think that could be perhaps done with the scanner… but it could be good if this work can be done by a process on the server (after that, we can use differents scanners)
Budget

'500 $ for 5'000 documents/month

dgenard

Hi,
In the IRIS products set, IRISDocument Server does exactly this … and more.

It's a server-side solution for
- Image pre-processing (Deskewing, Orientation detection, Despeckling, Smoothening)
- Document sorting and separation using bar codes or white pages
- OCR
- Output to many formats (PDF, PDF/A, DOC, OpenDocument, …)
- Hyper-compression of PDF and XPS documents
Just configure your scanner to output scanned images/documents to a shared folder, and IRISDocument does the rest.
Price should be within your budget.
Details on http://www.irislink.com/c2-1600-189/IRISDocument-9---OCR-Server.aspx

ALFEA Consulting provides the connector to automatically send scanned documents with their indexes to Alfresco.
See http://forums.alfresco.com/en/viewtopic.php?f=33&t=20486 for details.

If you need full functionnality for data extraction (i.e. invoices or forms processing), you may consider adding IRIS Capture Pro product.
See http://www.irislink.com/c2-778-189/IRISCapture-Pro-8-5-for-invoices---Overview.aspx

Feel free to ask for a quote by sending email to info-be(at)alfea-consulting.com, or directly to IRIS.
Regards, Denis

dranakan

Thank you Dgenard,
It seems to be a good product !

I have also found Abbyy Finereader Engine http://www.abbyy.com/ocr_sdk_linux/, and it can be used on Linux. Does someone use this product ?

dranakan

Hello,

I have found another interesting OCR engine : Snowbound http://www.snowbound.com/rastermaster_java/java_overview.html
We can use it in Java (and on Linux).

Does someone use this product ?

dranakan

Hello,

Snowbound has no OCR in Java…

jhonabraham

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OCR or e-Invoicing—Making the Right Choice for your Organization
By Thayer Stewart, Special Contributor – Supply Chain Management Review, 8/7/2009 8:19:00 AM
The global supply chain demands buyers and suppliers invest in technologies engineered to provide uninterrupted delivery of goods and services. One of the largest impediments to efficient and profitable time to market is the delay associated with invoice receipt and payment. Invoice capture solutions have emerged as vital components of the overall procurement to pay (P2P) process, though not all are created equal.

When selecting an invoice data capture solution with the purpose of streamlining and optimizing the P2P and accounts payable processes, organizations often consider a number of possibilities, including optical character recognition (OCR) and e-Invoicing. Although OCR does offer some benefit to accounts payable departments, e-Invoicing stands as the clear winner when comparing accuracy, cost-effectiveness and overall return on investment.

When making such an important decision, organizations should ask several questions to help determine the solution that best meets their needs. What are the core differences between the technologies? How accurate are the solutions? When will I achieve ROI? Will they decrease paper consumption? How will my suppliers react? Are there any other viable alternatives?

OCR, or optical character recognition, is a technology that’s been around for decades. The basic premise of OCR is that information on paper documents can be extracted and automatically entered into an organization’s A/P workflow or ERP system, eliminating the need for data entry staff. OCR has been successfully applied to many functions that involve standard forms, such as medical claims and mortgage applications, however, it has had limited success with non-standard, variable documents such as invoices. Data errors are common and exception handling is a significant issue that requires ongoing manual intervention.

E-Invoicing is the electronic transfer of invoice data from the supplier to the buyer usually through a third-party network that facilitates and streamlines the exchange process. Invoice information is taken directly from a supplier’s billing system, validated and enriched via the network platform and then imported directly into their customer’s ERP system. No paper is involved and the manual intervention associated with exception handling in the OCR process is eliminated with e-Invoicing.

"Rumah Dijual
mengembalikan jati diri bangsa"

thomas_x

we just have created a transformer for tiff to searchable pdf's, and want to create a transformer from pdf to searchable pdf our transformer does not work !

here is the tiff to pdf transformer (working)

<?xml version='1.0' encoding='UTF-8'?>
<!DOCTYPE beans PUBLIC '-//SPRING//DTD BEAN//EN' 'http://www.springframework.org/dtd/spring-beans.dtd'>
    <beans>
        <bean id="transformer.worker.ocr.tiff" class="org.alfresco.repo.content.transform.RuntimeExecutableContentTransformerWorker">

            <property name="mimetypeService">
                <ref bean="mimetypeService" />
            </property>

              <property name="checkCommand">
                 <bean class="org.alfresco.util.exec.RuntimeExec">
                    <property name="commandsAndArguments">
                        <map>
                            <entry key=".*">
                                <list>
    <!–                            <value>tesseract</value> –>
                                    <value>/opt/alfresco-4.0.d/ocr</value>
                                </list>
                            </entry>
                        </map>
                    </property>
                    <property name="errorCodes">
                       <value>2</value>
                    </property>
                 </bean>
              </property>

              <property name="transformCommand">
                 <bean class="org.alfresco.util.exec.RuntimeExec">
                    <property name="commandsAndArguments">
                        <map>
                            <entry key=".*">
                                <list>
    <!–                            <value>tesseract</value>
                                    <value>${source}</value>
                                    <value>${target}</value>
                                    <value>-l</value>
                                    <value>deu</value> –>
                                    <value>/opt/alfresco-4.0.d/ocr</value>
                                    <value>${source}</value>
                                    <value>${target}</value>
                                </list>
                            </entry>
                        </map>
                    </property>
                    <property name="errorCodes">
                       <value>1,2</value>
                    </property>
                 </bean>
              </property>

              <property name="explicitTransformations">
                 <list>
                    <bean class="org.alfresco.repo.content.transform.ExplictTransformationDetails">
                        <property name="sourceMimetype"><value>image/tiff</value></property>
                        <property name="targetMimetype"><value>text/plain</value></property>
                    </bean>
                 </list>
              </property>
        </bean>

        <bean id="transformer.ocr.tiff" class="org.alfresco.repo.content.transform.ProxyContentTransformer" parent="baseContentTransformer">
            <property name="worker">
                <ref bean="transformer.worker.ocr.tiff" />
            </property>
        </bean>
</beans>

‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍

here is our pdf to pdf transformer (not working)

<?xml version='1.0' encoding='UTF-8'?>
<!DOCTYPE beans PUBLIC '-//SPRING//DTD BEAN//EN' 'http://www.springframework.org/dtd/spring-beans.dtd'>
    <beans>
        <bean id="transformer.worker.ocr.pdf" class="org.alfresco.repo.content.transform.RuntimeExecutableContentTransformerWorker">

            <property name="mimetypeService">
                <ref bean="mimetypeService" />
            </property>

              <property name="checkCommand">
                 <bean class="org.alfresco.util.exec.RuntimeExec">
                    <property name="commandsAndArguments">
                        <map>
                            <entry key=".*">
                                <list>
    <!–                            <value>tesseract</value> –>
                                    <value>/opt/alfresco-4.0.d/ocrPDF</value>
                                </list>
                            </entry>
                        </map>
                    </property>
                    <property name="errorCodes">
                       <value>2</value>
                    </property>
                 </bean>
              </property>

              <property name="transformCommand">
                 <bean class="org.alfresco.util.exec.RuntimeExec">
                    <property name="commandsAndArguments">
                        <map>
                            <entry key=".*">
                                <list>
    <!–                            <value>tesseract</value>
                                    <value>${source}</value>
                                    <value>${target}</value>
                                    <value>-l</value>
                                    <value>deu</value> –>
                                    <value>/opt/alfresco-4.0.d/ocrPDF</value>
                                    <value>${source}</value>
                                    <value>${target}</value>
                                </list>
                            </entry>
                        </map>
                    </property>
                    <property name="errorCodes">
                       <value>1,2</value>
                    </property>
                 </bean>
              </property>

              <property name="explicitTransformations">
                 <list>
                    <bean class="org.alfresco.repo.content.transform.ExplictTransformationDetails">
                        <property name="sourceMimetype"><value>application/pdf</value></property>
                        <property name="targetMimetype"><value>text/plain</value></property>
                    </bean>
                 </list>
              </property>
        </bean>

        <bean id="transformer.ocr.pdf" class="org.alfresco.repo.content.transform.ProxyContentTransformer" parent="baseContentTransformer">
            <property name="worker">
                <ref bean="transformer.worker.ocr.pdf" />
            </property>
        </bean>
</beans>
‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍

and here is the ocrPDF script

#!/bin/bash
# Run OCR on a multi-page PDF file and create a new pdf with the
# extracted text in hidden layer. Requires cuneiform, hocr2pdf, gs.
# Usage: ./dwim.sh input.pdf output.pdf

set -e

input="$1"
output="$2"
echo "$(date)" >>/tmp/ocrtransform.log
echo "ocrPDFfrom $input to $output" >>/tmp/ocrtransform.log
tmpdir="$(mktemp -d)"

# extract images of the pages (note: resolution hard-coded)
gs -SDEVICE=tiffg4 -r300x300 -sOutputFile="$tmpdir/page-%04d.tiff" -dNOPAUSE -dBATCH – "$input"

# OCR each page individually and convert into PDF
for page in "$tmpdir"/page-*.tiff
do
    base="${page%.tiff}"
#    cuneiform -f hocr -o "$base.html" "$page"
    tesseract "$page" "$base" -l deu hocr
    hocr2pdf -i "$page" -o "$base.pdf" < "$base.html"
    echo "hocr2pdf $page to $base" >>/tmp/ocrtransform.log
done

# combine the pages into one PDF
gs -q -dNOPAUSE -dBATCH -sDEVICE=pdfwrite -sOutputFile="$output" "$tmpdir"/page-*.pdf

rm -rf – "$tmpdir"

‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍

we have tested the ocrPDF script …. it's ok !
but when we upload a file, the ocrPDF script is not executed !

does anybody know what's the problem in this transnformer definition ?

thanks

wmay

Hi,

We have implemented an OCR server integrated with Alfresco, which can be used as transformer or via Javascript and Java. It runs on a separate OCR server and supports Abbyy and Google OCR. for more informaiton see here - https://forums.alfresco.com/en/viewtopic.php?f=33&t=44739