Cognex has developed a tool for optical character recognition and verification (OCR and OCV) that, it says, can achieve the highest read rates, while minimising misreads. The OCRMax tool is claimed to overcome the limitations of other OCR technologies and can handle character variations, skew text and proportional fonts. It is easy to set up and use, requiring minimal training.

The tool, which can be used with Cognex’s In-Sight and VisionPro vision products, includes a segmenting function that takes each line of characters and splits it into regions, each containing one character. This allows OCRMax to handle distorted, touching and variably-spaced characters. It can also cope with uneven surfaces and lighting variations. The tool allows users to control key parameters to improve segmentation performance further, resulting in even higher read rates and fewer misreads.

“OCRMax gives manufacturers the power to ensure that labels match products, to verify print legibility of codes and to match text to barcodes or 2D data matrix codes,” says Bhaskar Banerjee, manager of Cognex’s vision systems business. “The ease of use and set up, powerful segmentation functionality and simple, flexible font training that OCRMax offers, make it a powerful solution for any manufacturer.”