A method and apparatus for finding a reference pattern (RP) with K elements imbedded in an input pattern IP with repeating substrings uses dual pointers to point to elements in the RP to compare with input elements sequentially clocked from the IP. The dual pointers are loaded with a pointer address corresponding to the first reference element in the RP and the pointer addresses are either incremented to the next position or are reset back to the address of the first reference element in respons...

A method discovers patterns in unknown multi-dimensional data. A time-series of the multi-dimensional data is generated and a point cross-distance matrix is constructed by self-correlating the time-series. All minimum cost paths in the point cross-distance matrix are located at multiple time resolutions. The minimum cost paths are then related to temporal sub-sequences in the multi-dimensional data to discover high-level patterns in the unknown multi-dimensional data.

In accordance with this invention, a method, computer program product, and system for performing automated recognition of blocks of text within a graphic file are provided. The method, computer program product, and system automatically transform drawings into a graphic file format that provides enriched electronic display and text search of the graphic files. The text within large sets of drawings, parts catalogs, and various manuals is automatically discovered, extracted and indexed by the geom...

A model-based object recognition system operates to recognize an object on a predetermined world surface within a world space. An image of the object is acquired. This image is a distorted projection of the world space. The acquired image is processed to locate one or more local features of the image, with respect to an image coordinate system of the image. These local features are mapped a world coordinate system of the world surface, and matched to a model defined in the world coordinate syste...

This invention provides an image processing system and image processing method which can specify and save an input image which matches a predetermined pattern and also simplify the determination process. Vector data is generated from image information input by a scanner. Keyword information to inhibit reuse, which is contained in the image information, is input. The similarity between the input vector data and the keyword information is determined. Only when it is determined that the vector data...

A circuit for extracting a connected component feature from an input image includes an input stage, a counting stage, a bit-preparing stage, and a bit-output stage. The input stage receives a bit pattern and detects a connected component in the bit pattern. The counting stage counts the number of connected components detected in the input stage and generates a current representing that number. The bit-preparing stage generates more than one current as a basis for information including more than ...

A method and apparatus for inspecting a reticle measures line widths using an inspection tool that images the reticle and compares the image with a design database to detect errors in real time. The differences between the line widths of patterns on the reticle and the design database are stored during the inspection procedure. The difference (or "bias") information is then processed off-line to create a map of all the local line-width deviation values (i.e., bias) of every feature on the reticl...

A method and apparatus for comparing data is described. In one embodiment, an exemplary method includes receiving a first set of data pertaining a first object and a second set of data pertaining to a second object, and comparing the first object with the second object using an earth mover's distance method that is based on computation of a series of Hausdorff distances.

One implementation provides a method to provide information associated with a previously designed component having a geometry that is similar to a geometry of a source component. In this implementation, the method includes obtaining a first set of coefficients for a non-invertible representation of the geometry of the source component, and comparing the first set of coefficients to a second set of coefficients for a non-invertible representation of the geometry of the previously designed compone...

According to the present invention, face parts to be compared are set by the comparison target setting section based on the number of images of a group of search target images. Then, a retrieval target image and each image of the group of search target images is compared by the set face parts. An image with a particular correlation is determined to be a similar image and retrieved from the group of images to be compared. Thereby, it is possible to perform quick retrieval based on the number of i...