SBIR-STTR Award

This Small Business Innovation Research Phase I project will determine the feasibility of developing a novel OCR reader within the framework of an integrated technology aimed at providing ordinary people with the means to interact with computers in a more natural and productive way. For example, at a typical meeting people write notes, speak to each other, and show graphs, figures, and pictures. That's the natural way people work together. CIC wants to make it possible for people to interact with computers in this more human-like way. Rather than forcing people to adapt to computers, computers should be `smart` enough to deal with people on their own terms. The technologies required to make this possible include, at a minimum, on-line handwriting recognition, Optical Character Recognition (OCR) and associated image processing, speech recognition, and the methodology for handling interactions between input modalities. Phase I will examine the feasibility of an important step in this process -- bringing on-line handwriting recognition and OCR into a common algorithmic framework. If successful, this technology would have three significant

Benefits:
1) It will be an important step towards making it possible for people to interact with computers in a more natural way; 2) It will improve the state-of-the-art for handwritten OCR readers; and 3) It will result in efficient new commercial products. Last year the United States Post Office (until recently, the major supporter of new OCR research) stated that `as significant advancements in OCR technology are needed to bring the read rate (of handwriting) to the desired level, innovative approaches are sought to achieve those advancements.` CIC expects that this approach, based upon techniques proven to be successful for its on-line recognition products, will advance the state-of-the-art in handwritten OCR. From a commercial standpoint, a product combining OCR and on-line handwriting recognition in a common framework with shared resources will be smaller, more efficient, less costly, and easier to maintain than two separate products.

This Small Business Innovation Research Phase II project will develop a novel OCR reader within the framework of an integrated technology aimed at providing ordinary people with the means to interact with computers in a more natural and productive way. The technologies required to make this possible include on-line hand-writing recognition, Optical Character Recognition (OCR), image processing, speech recognition, and the methodology for handling interactions between input modalities. This Phase II work will take a first important step in this direction - bringing on-line handwriting recognition and OCR into a common algorithmic framework. If successful, three significant benefits will result: 1) Humans will interact with computers in a more natural way; 2) The state-of-the-art of handwritten OCR readers will improve; and 3) Efficient new commercial products will be developed. Recently, the United States Post Office, a major user of advanced OCR systems, stated that "as significant advancements in OCR technology are needed to bring the read rate (of handwriting) to the desired level, innovative approaches are sought to achieve those advancements." From a commercial standpoint, a product combining OCR and on-line handwriting recognition in a common framework with shared resources will be smaller, more efficient, less costly, and easier to maintain than two separate products. Improved user-interfaces and OCR performance are of significant interest to major computer manufacturers because they will lead to increased hardware sales and new software products.