A model-based form processing sub-system

This paper presents a model-based form processing sub-system, which consists of a form model database and five modules: (i) form modeling, (ii) form recognition, (iii) form dropout, (iv) form definition tool, and (v) form reconstruction. The form modeling module builds explicit representations of scanned form templates to facilitate form recognition and dropout. It can also assist a user to define various fields on a form. The automatic form recognition eliminates the need for manually sorting input forms. The form dropout module effectively removes pre-printed form content to achieve a high data compression rate and to provide clean data for OCR. Our model-driven form dropout scheme has two major advantages over image-based subtraction methods in both dropout efficiency and quality preservation of filled-in data. © 1996 IEEE.