ROW-BY-ROW SEGMENTATION AND THRESHOLDING FOR OPTICAL CHARACTER RECOGNITION

During segmentation of individual characters in a column, the invention predicts for the next character an optimal minimum gray level sensitivity threshold while scanning pixel rows between characters by lowering the threshold unless or until noise in the image causes the scanner to detect too many "ON" pixels between adjacent numerals. During subsequent attempts to recognize the segmented character, the invention computes a confidence score and increases the sensitivity threshold above the predicted level if the confidence score is insufficient.