IMAGE-BASED DOCUMENT PROCESSING SYSTEM PROVIDING LOST IMAGE RECOVERY

A method for recovering lost or unavailable images in an image based document processing system. Images of documents having an ordered relationship are captured and stored while the documents are sorted by a document processor into respective pockets based on data read from the documents during sorting. If images are lost or unavailable after sorting, it would be very time consuming to collect the corresponding documents from the pockets and arrange them back into their original order for a re-pass by the document processor. This problem is solved by re-passing the documents without reordering, while using previously recorded document identification and sequence data derived during the first pass on the document processor, to electronically reestablish the original ordered relationship for the document images captured on re-pass when they are stored.