Re: flexfax: automatic processing of received facsimile

[Nico Kadel-Garcia <raoul@cirl.meei.harvard.edu>]

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On Mon, 24 Aug 1998, Garmann Bernhard wrote:

> the article 'Automatic Processing of Received Facsimile' recommends
> using
> the faxrecvd script.
> For automatic printing it is recommended, to use the fax2ps utility.
> 
> The goal is, to generate ASCII Text from the FAX message, that should be
> parsed by an awk, or perl script, to extract certain fields and feed it
> into
> a data base application.
> Also the same problem should arise, when distributing incoming FAX by
> email through looking at the FAX header page 'To:' line and the
> subsequent
> name.
> 
> FAX is a bit mapped format, so the above conversion must convert
> graphics
> to text, which involves some character recognition scheme. These schemes
> usually work only up to a certain level of accuracy and may miss a
> character
> here and there.

With fax, they miss a *LOT*. Don't expect better than 80% on a typical form
or graphic or handwritten fax.

> Question: 
> How accurate and reliable can this conversion be done with the above
> mentioned
> command chain: fax2ps | ps2ascii | myParseScript.awk | bigDataBaseApp .

ps2ascii works *ONLY* with Postscript that contain text entries. It is
useless for a bitmapped image such as a received fax. There is
unfortunately no good freeware for doing on-line character
recognition: there are a number of useful commercial packages, but
they are mostly for Windows boxes.

Your desire is reasonable and shared by many people. But frankly, your
clients should be using email or CGI in order to send you data for
your database. Using a graphic format (faxes) in order to transmit
numbers and letters is like eating soup with a broom....

			Nico Kadel-Garcia
			Senior Engineer, CIRL 
			Mass. Eye and Ear Infirmary
			raoul@cirl.meei.harvard.edu

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