Content:

ocrd_cis

CIS OCR-D command line tools for the automatic post-correction of OCR-results.

Introduction

ocrd_cis contains different tools for the automatic post-correction of OCR results. It contains tools for the training, evaluation and execution of the post-correction. Most of the tools are following the OCR-D CLI conventions.

Additionally, there is a helper tool to align multiple OCR results, as well as an improved version of Ocropy that works with Python 3 and is also wrapped for OCR-D.

Installation

There are 2 ways to install the ocrd_cis tools:

normal packaging:

make install # or equally: pip install -U pip .

(Installs ocrd_cis including its Python dependencies from the current directory to the Python package directory.)

editable mode:

make install-devel # or equally: pip install -e -U pip .

(Installs ocrd_cis including its Python dependencies from the current directory.)

It is possible (and recommended) to install ocrd_cis in a custom user directory (instead of system-wide) by using virtualenv (or venv):

 # create venv:
 python3 -m venv venv-dir # where "venv-dir" could be any path name
 # enter venv in current shell:
 source venv-dir/bin/activate
 # install ocrd_cis:
 make install # or any other way (see above)
 # use ocrd_cis:
 ocrd-cis-ocropy-binarize ...
 # finally, leave venv:
 deactivate

Profiler

The post-correction is dependent on the language profiler and its language configurations to generate corrections for suspicious words. In order to use the post-correction, a profiler and according language configurations have to be present on the system. You can refer to our manuals and our lexical resources for more information.

If you use docker you can use the preinstalled profiler from within the docker-container. The profiler is installed to /apps/profiler and the language configurations lie in /etc/profiler/languages in the container image.

Usage

Most tools follow the OCR-D specifications, (which makes them OCR-D processors,) i.e. they accept the command-line options --input-file-grp, --output-file-grp, --page-id, --parameter, --mets, --log-level (each with an argument). Invoke with --help to get self-documentation.

Some of the processors (most notably the alignment tool) expect a comma-seperated list of multiple input file groups, or multiple output file groups.

The ocrd-tool.json contains a formal description of all the processors along with the parameter config file accepted by their --parameter argument.

ocrd-cis-postcorrect

This processor runs the post correction using a pre-trained model. If additional support OCRs should be used, models for these OCR steps are required and must be executed and aligned beforehand (see the test script for an example).

There is a basic model trained on the OCR-D ground truth. It gets installed allongside this module. You can get the model's install path using ocrd-cis-data -model (see below for a description of ocrd-cis-data). To use this model (or any other model) the model parameter in the configuration file must be set to the path of the model to use. Be aware that the models are trained with a specific maximal number of OCR's (usally 2) and that is not possible to use more OCR's than the number used for training (it is possible to use less, though).

Arguments:

--parameter path to configuration file
--input-file-grp name of the master-OCR file group
--output-file-grp name of the post-correction file group
--log-level set log level
--mets path to METS file in workspace

As mentioned above in order to use the postcorrection with input from multiple OCR's, some preprocessing steps are needed: firstly the additional OCR recognition has to be done and secondly the multiple OCR's have to be aligned (you can also take a look to the function ocrd_cis_align in the tests). Assuming an original recognition as file group OCR1 on the segmented document of file group SEG, the folloing commands can be used:

ocrd-ocropus-recognize -I SEG -O OCR2 ... # additional OCR
ocrd-cis-align -I OCR1,OCR2 -O ALGN ... # align OCR1 and OCR2
ocrd-cis-postcorrect -I ALGN -O PC ... # post correction

ocrd-cis-align

Aligns tokens of multiple input file groups to one output file group. This processor is used to align the master OCR with any additional support OCRs. It accepts a comma-separated list of input file groups, which it aligns in order.

Arguments:

--parameter path to configuration file
--input-file-grp comma seperated list of the input file groups; first input file group is the master OCR; if there is a ground truth (for evaluation) it must be the last file group in the list
--output-file-grp name of the file group for the aligned result
--log-level set log level
--mets path to METS file in workspace

ocrd-cis-data

Helper tool to get the path of the installed data files. Usage: ocrd-cis-data [-h|-jar|-3gs|-model|-config] to get the path of the jar library, the pre-trained post correction model, the path to the default 3-grams language model file or the default training configuration file. This tool does not follow the OCR-D conventions.

Training

There is no dedicated training script provided. Models are trained using the java implementation directly (check out the training test script for an example). Training a model requires a workspace containing one or more file groups consisting of aligned OCR and ground-truth documents (the last file group has to be the ground truth).

Arguments:

--parameter path to configuration file
--input-file-grp name of the input file group to profile
--output-file-grp name of the output file group where the profile is stored
--log-level set log level
--mets path to METS file in the workspace

ocrd-cis-ocropy-train

The ocropy-train tool can be used to train LSTM models. It takes ground truth from the workspace and saves (image+text) snippets from the corresponding pages. Then a model is trained on all snippets for 1 million (or the given number of) randomized iterations from the parameter file.

java -jar $(ocrd-cis-data -jar) \
	 -c train \
	 --input-file-grp OCR1,OCR2,GT \
     --log-level DEBUG \
	 -m mets.xml \
	 --parameter $(ocrd-cis-data -config)

ocrd-cis-ocropy-clip

The clip processor can be used to remove intrusions of neighbouring segments in regions / lines of a page. It runs a connected component analysis on every text region / line of every PAGE in the input file group, as well as its overlapping neighbours, and for each binary object of conflict, determines whether it belongs to the neighbour, and can therefore be clipped to the background. It references the resulting segment image files in the output PAGE (via AlternativeImage). (Use this to suppress separators and neighbouring text.)

ocrd-cis-ocropy-clip \
  -I OCR-D-SEG-REGION \
  -O OCR-D-SEG-REGION-CLIP \
  -p '{"level-of-operation": "region"}'

Available parameters are:

   "level-of-operation" [string - "region"]
    PAGE XML hierarchy level granularity to annotate images for
    Possible values: ["region", "line"]
   "dpi" [number - -1]
    pixel density in dots per inch (overrides any meta-data in the
    images); disabled when negative
   "min_fraction" [number - 0.7]
    share of foreground pixels that must be retained by the largest label

ocrd-cis-ocropy-resegment

The resegment processor can be used to remove overlap between neighbouring lines of a page. It runs a line segmentation on every text region of every PAGE in the input file group, and for each line already annotated, determines the label of largest extent within the original coordinates (polygon outline) in that line, and annotates the resulting coordinates in the output PAGE. (Use this to polygonalise text lines that are poorly segmented, e.g. via bounding boxes.)

ocrd-cis-ocropy-resegment \
  -I OCR-D-SEG-LINE \
  -O OCR-D-SEG-LINE-RES \
  -p '{"extend_margins": 3}'

Available parameters are:

   "level-of-operation" [string - "page"]
    PAGE XML hierarchy level to segment textlines in ('region' abides by
    existing text region boundaries, 'page' optimises lines in the whole
    page once
    Possible values: ["page", "region"]
   "method" [string - "lineest"]
    source for new line polygon candidates ('lineest' for line
    estimation, i.e. how Ocropy would have segmented text lines;
    'baseline' tries to re-polygonize from the baseline annotation;
    'ccomps' avoids crossing connected components by majority rule)
    Possible values: ["lineest", "baseline", "ccomps"]
   "dpi" [number - 0]
    pixel density in dots per inch (overrides any meta-data in the
    images); disabled when zero or negative
   "min_fraction" [number - 0.75]
    share of foreground pixels that must be retained by the output
    polygons
   "extend_margins" [number - 3]
    number of pixels to extend the input polygons in all directions

ocrd-cis-ocropy-segment

The segment processor can be used to segment (pages or) regions of a page into (regions and) lines. It runs a line segmentation on every (page or) text region of every PAGE in the input file group, and adds (text regions containing) TextLine elements with the resulting polygon outlines to the annotation of the output PAGE. (Does not detect tables.)

ocrd-cis-ocropy-segment \
  -I OCR-D-SEG-BLOCK \
  -O OCR-D-SEG-LINE \
  -p '{"level-of-operation": "page", "gap_height": 0.015}'

Available parameters are:

   "dpi" [number - -1]
    pixel density in dots per inch (overrides any meta-data in the
    images); disabled when negative; when disabled and no meta-data is
    found, 300 is assumed
   "level-of-operation" [string - "region"]
    PAGE XML hierarchy level to read images from and add elements to
    Possible values: ["page", "table", "region"]
   "maxcolseps" [number - 20]
    (when operating on the page/table level) maximum number of
    white/background column separators to detect, counted piece-wise
   "maxseps" [number - 20]
    (when operating on the page/table level) number of black/foreground
    column separators to detect (and suppress), counted piece-wise
   "maximages" [number - 10]
    (when operating on the page level) maximum number of black/foreground
    very large components to detect (and suppress), counted piece-wise
   "csminheight" [number - 4]
    (when operating on the page/table level) minimum height of
    white/background or black/foreground column separators in multiples
    of scale/capheight, counted piece-wise
   "hlminwidth" [number - 10]
    (when operating on the page/table level) minimum width of
    black/foreground horizontal separators in multiples of
    scale/capheight, counted piece-wise
   "gap_height" [number - 0.01]
    (when operating on the page/table level) largest minimum pixel
    average in the horizontal or vertical profiles (across the binarized
    image) to still be regarded as a gap during recursive X-Y cut from
    lines to regions; needs to be larger when more foreground noise is
    present, reduce to avoid mistaking text for noise
   "gap_width" [number - 1.5]
    (when operating on the page/table level) smallest width in multiples
    of scale/capheight of a valley in the horizontal or vertical
    profiles (across the binarized image) to still be regarded as a gap
    during recursive X-Y cut from lines to regions; needs to be smaller
    when more foreground noise is present, increase to avoid mistaking
    inter-line as paragraph gaps and inter-word as inter-column gaps
   "overwrite_order" [boolean - true]
    (when operating on the page/table level) remove any references for
    existing TextRegion elements within the top (page/table) reading
    order; otherwise append
   "overwrite_separators" [boolean - true]
    (when operating on the page/table level) remove any existing
    SeparatorRegion elements; otherwise append
   "overwrite_regions" [boolean - true]
    (when operating on the page/table level) remove any existing
    TextRegion elements; otherwise append
   "overwrite_lines" [boolean - true]
    (when operating on the region level) remove any existing TextLine
    elements; otherwise append
   "spread" [number - 2.4]
    distance in points (pt) from the foreground to project text line (or
    text region) labels into the background for polygonal contours; if
    zero, project half a scale/capheight

ocrd-cis-ocropy-deskew

The deskew processor can be used to deskew pages / regions of a page. It runs a projection profile-based skew estimation on every segment of every PAGE in the input file group and annotates the orientation angle in the output PAGE. (Does not include orientation detection.)

ocrd-cis-ocropy-deskew \
  -I OCR-D-SEG-LINE \
  -O OCR-D-SEG-LINE-DES \
  -p '{"level-of-operation": "page", "maxskew": 10}'

Available parameters are:

   "maxskew" [number - 5.0]
    modulus of maximum skewing angle to detect (larger will be slower, 0
    will deactivate deskewing)
   "level-of-operation" [string - "region"]
    PAGE XML hierarchy level granularity to annotate images for
    Possible values: ["page", "region"]

ocrd-cis-ocropy-denoise

The denoise processor can be used to despeckle pages / regions / lines of a page. It runs a connected component analysis and removes small components (black or white) on every segment of every PAGE in the input file group and references the resulting segment image files in the output PAGE (as AlternativeImage).

ocrd-cis-ocropy-denoise \
  -I OCR-D-SEG-LINE-DES \
  -O OCR-D-SEG-LINE-DEN \
  -p '{"noise_maxsize": 2}'

Available parameters are:

   "noise_maxsize" [number - 3.0]
    maximum size in points (pt) for connected components to regard as
    noise (0 will deactivate denoising)
   "dpi" [number - -1]
    pixel density in dots per inch (overrides any meta-data in the
    images); disabled when negative
   "level-of-operation" [string - "page"]
    PAGE XML hierarchy level granularity to annotate images for
    Possible values: ["page", "region", "line"]

ocrd-cis-ocropy-binarize

The binarize processor can be used to binarize (and optionally denoise and deskew) pages / regions / lines of a page. It runs the "nlbin" adaptive whitelevel thresholding on every segment of every PAGE in the input file group and references the resulting segment image files in the output PAGE (as AlternativeImage). (If a deskewing angle has already been annotated in a region, the tool respects that and rotates accordingly.) Images can also be produced grayscale-normalized.

ocrd-cis-ocropy-binarize \
  -I OCR-D-SEG-LINE-DES \
  -O OCR-D-SEG-LINE-BIN \
  -p '{"level-of-operation": "page", "threshold": 0.7}'

Available parameters are:

   "method" [string - "ocropy"]
    binarization method to use (only 'ocropy' will include deskewing and
    denoising)
    Possible values: ["none", "global", "otsu", "gauss-otsu", "ocropy"]
   "threshold" [number - 0.5]
    for the 'ocropy' and ' global' method, black/white threshold to apply
    on the whitelevel normalized image (the larger the more/heavier
    foreground)
   "grayscale" [boolean - false]
    for the 'ocropy' method, produce grayscale-normalized instead of
    thresholded image
   "maxskew" [number - 0.0]
    modulus of maximum skewing angle (in degrees) to detect (larger will
    be slower, 0 will deactivate deskewing)
   "noise_maxsize" [number - 0]
    maximum pixel number for connected components to regard as noise (0
    will deactivate denoising)
   "level-of-operation" [string - "page"]
    PAGE XML hierarchy level granularity to annotate images for
    Possible values: ["page", "region", "line"]

ocrd-cis-ocropy-dewarp

The dewarp processor can be used to vertically dewarp text lines of a page. It runs the baseline estimation and center normalizer algorithm on every line in every text region of every PAGE in the input file group and references the resulting line image files in the output PAGE (as AlternativeImage).

ocrd-cis-ocropy-dewarp \
  -I OCR-D-SEG-LINE-BIN \
  -O OCR-D-SEG-LINE-DEW \
  -p '{"range": 5}'

Available parameters are:

   "dpi" [number - -1]
    pixel density in dots per inch (overrides any meta-data in the
    images); disabled when negative
   "range" [number - 4.0]
    maximum vertical disposition or maximum margin (will be multiplied by
    mean centerline deltas to yield pixels)
   "max_neighbour" [number - 0.05]
    maximum rate of foreground pixels intruding from neighbouring lines
    (line will not be processed above that)

ocrd-cis-ocropy-recognize

The recognize processor can be used to recognize the lines / words / glyphs of a page. It runs LSTM optical character recognition on every line in every text region of every PAGE in the input file group and adds the resulting text annotation in the output PAGE.

ocrd-cis-ocropy-recognize \
  -I OCR-D-SEG-LINE-DEW \
  -O OCR-D-OCR-OCRO \
  -p '{"textequiv_level": "word", "model": "fraktur-jze.pyrnn"}'

Available parameters are:

   "textequiv_level" [string - "line"]
    PAGE XML hierarchy level granularity to add the TextEquiv results to
    Possible values: ["line", "word", "glyph"]
   "model" [string]
    ocropy model to apply (e.g. fraktur.pyrnn)

Tesserocr

Install essential system packages for Tesserocr

sudo apt-get install python3-tk \
  tesseract-ocr libtesseract-dev libleptonica-dev \
  libimage-exiftool-perl libxml2-utils

Then install Tesserocr from: https://github.com/OCR-D/ocrd_tesserocr

pip install -r requirements.txt
pip install .

Download and move tesseract models from: https://github.com/tesseract-ocr/tesseract/wiki/Data-Files or use your own models and place them into: /usr/share/tesseract-ocr/4.00/tessdata

Workflow configuration

A decent pipeline might look like this:

image normalization/optimization
page-level binarization
page-level cropping
(page-level binarization)
(page-level despeckling)
page-level deskewing
(page-level dewarping)
region segmentation, possibly subdivided into
1. text/non-text separation
2. text region segmentation (and classification)
3. reading order detection
4. non-text region classification
region-level clipping
(region-level deskewing)
line segmentation
(line-level clipping or resegmentation)
line-level dewarping
line-level recognition
(line-level alignment and post-correction)

If GT is used, then cropping/segmentation steps can be omitted.

If a segmentation is used which does not produce overlapping segments, then clipping/resegmentation can be omitted.

Testing

To run a few basic tests type make test (ocrd_cis has to be installed in order to run any tests).

Miscellaneous

OCR-D workspace

Create a new (empty) workspace: ocrd workspace -d workspace-dir init
cd into workspace-dir
Add new file to workspace: ocrd workspace add file -G group -i id -m mimetype -g pageId

cisocrgroup/ocrd_cis

ocrd_cis

Introduction

Installation

Profiler

Usage

ocrd-cis-postcorrect

ocrd-cis-align

ocrd-cis-data

Training

ocrd-cis-ocropy-train

ocrd-cis-ocropy-clip

ocrd-cis-ocropy-resegment

ocrd-cis-ocropy-segment

ocrd-cis-ocropy-deskew

ocrd-cis-ocropy-denoise

ocrd-cis-ocropy-binarize

ocrd-cis-ocropy-dewarp

ocrd-cis-ocropy-recognize

Tesserocr

Workflow configuration

Testing

Miscellaneous

OCR-D workspace

OCR-D links