Intelligent Character Recognition (ICR) refers to the recognition of hand-written information as contrasted with Optical Character Recognition (OCR), which is the recognition of information printed using formatted fonts. ICR is frequently used in conjunction with "constrained" numerals or characters that are manually entered into boxed areas of a form. Forms Processing frequently will require ICR.
microMEDIA uses several different ICR software engines, including combination products that use algorithms to select the best possible accuracy for each character.
ICR applications include surveys, applications, response cards, etc. Portions of the information may be preprinted or include identification numbers which link to additional information about the person completing the form. The data that has been manually entered is subsequently integrated with data previously held within a database.
ICR is also used to minimize manual key entry. Parts of a form may have to be entered manually such as handwritten comments, but identifying information might still be amenable to ICR.
All ICR applications are custom tailored to the specific document imaging requirements of the client’s application.