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Automated OCR for Forms Processing?
Oscar Carrillo asks: "We have to do a large NIH grant which collects tons of data. And much of that data is in the form of questionnaires. The forms will be available on the web, but it's mostly not feasible to have the subjects sit in front of the computer all day (not to mention that people get annoyed sitting in front of a computer all day). The study is being conducted at several universities and institutions around the country. Using Linux/JSP/Struts/PostgreSQL will take care of most of our needs. But it would save a lot of data entry, if all forms could be scanned at each site, images uploaded to the website, and then automatically put through OCR (Optical Character Recognition) to get only the relevant raw data that subjects wrote. Does anyone know of something that can handle this? Are there any open source projects that can handle this? Any good commercial alternatives?"
Fist P0st
Alarm. Alarm. Baxter Meowmix alarm.
How are things in the civilized world? You probably don't know who I am. That's
;).
okay. I'm here to inform you of my mission, what I've found, and what I hope to
teach all of you.
I work for the United Christians Food for Poor Kids Foundation, and let me tell
you, there's a lot of poor kids in Afghanistan. As in most countries in the
Middle East, most people are unemployed, and therefore poor. And where there's a
lot of poor people, UCFPKF is needed.
UCFPKF always has the latest in technology. In this instance, we had access to
some Pentium 4's(r) 2GHz. Obviously, we needed an operating system that could
handle the power of Intel's beast. Unfortunately, we didn't have any computer
experts on hand up to the task, so it was going to be trial and error.
We'd heard good things about Linux and its "ACL's". Little did we know of its
incompatibility with modern hardware. It didn't even support Token Ring
networking, the newest form of Ethernet(r), which we require to always keep
in contact between bases. Also, it didn't seem to use SSE optimizations, which
when processing food amounts, are also very important. Also, there were
homo-erotic implications in the structure of Linux, which is strictly
unallowable in a Christian organization such as ours.
The next obvious step was to install Windows. We hesitated because we knew that
it was common knowledge that Windows crashed incessantly. Our experience was
less than stellar. It also didn't support Token Ring networking. Security is
important in this region because many people try to steal food, but "Windows
2000" (which I hear didn't even come out in 2000) doesn't even allow you to
have seperate permissions. Once again, the SSE optimizations were not used.
I was in a situation that seemed impossible. The two most famous operating
systems had failed me. I walked around the base in a dazed stupor. What was I
going to do for our ultra-important network? A boy saw me pouting and sighing,
and asked me what was wrong. I said nothing, but we exchanged names, and little
did I know, that young Junis had a gift for computers.
Junis saw me the next day, slaving away at the sparse terminal that "Windows
2000" makes you type in. He asked what I was doing with that primitive OS. I
laughed and told him that I was doing inventory. He ran to his village, into his
hut, and pulled out a box I had never seen before. The box said "SCO Xenix" the
front. I had never seen or heard of this Xenix before. But I soon learned that
Junis was a computer genius.
All we had to do was put the Xenix CD into the computer, and everything worked
like magic (not the devil's magic... good magic:) ). Our Token Ring network
integrated flawlessly with it. And it even used SSE optimizations. Well, me and
Junis are now on a new mission. We're spreading the word. It might not be the
word of the lord, but then again, maybe it is
SCO Xenix: The Unix of Tomorrow.
Janet Milman
Network Administrator, UCFPKF
Afghanistan base
- posted by poopbot: information likes to be narrow
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