physics

Indic OCR

Indic OCR is a physics topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Indic OCR rather than just read about it. In short: Indic OCR refers to the process of converting text images written in Indic scripts into e-text using Optical character recognition (OCR) techniques. Broadly, it can also refer to the OCR systems of Brahmic scripts for languages of South Asia and Southeast Asia, not just the scripts of the Indian subcontinent, which are all written in an abugida-based writing system.

Key takeaways

Indic OCR belongs to physics; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Indic OCR to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Indic OCR from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Indic OCR refers to the process of converting text images written in Indic scripts into e-text using Optical character recognition (OCR) techniques. Broadly, it can also refer to the OCR systems of Brahmic scripts for languages of South Asia and Southeast Asia, not just the scripts of the Indian subcontinent, which are all written in an abugida-based writing system. OCR for Latin characters is still not 100% accurate but a relatively high degree of accuracy in conversion has been able to be achieved. Such accuracy has not yet been able to be achieved for Indic scripts using OCR. This is due in part to the writing systems of Indic languages as well as a lack of standard representation, encoding, and support among operating systems and keyboards. The Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC) and Technology Development for Indian Languages, the premier R&D organisation of the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (also known as MeitY) of India have carried out many projects relating to OCR. Their projects include OCR for Malayalam, Odia, Punjabi, Telugu and Devanagari script.

Properties of Indian writing systems There are 22 officially recognised languages in India. Of these, Hindi, Bengali and Punjabi are the most widely spoken Indo-Aryan languages and are also the fourth, seventh and tenth most widely spoken languages in the world respectively. Two or more languages can be written with same script. For example, Devanagari is used to write Hindi, Marathi, Rajasthani, Sanskrit, Bhojpuri and others, while Eastern Nagari is used to write Bengali, Assamese, Manipuri and others. Apart from basic characters as consonants and vowels, most Indic languages combine 2 or more basic characters to form compound characters. The shape of a compound character is more complex than the constituent basic characters. Some Indo-Aryan languages (including Hindi and Punjabi) have a horizontal line over the characters, while other languages (including Gujarati) and Dravidian languages (Malayalam, Kannada, Tamil, and Telugu) do not. These are some of the main challenges for creating a single OCR for all Indic languages. Indic OCR also generally includes support for recently invented scripts in India like Ol Chiki, Warang Citi, Mundari Bani, etc. which are mainly created for writing Munda languages of Austroasiatic family. The concept of upper/lower case is absent in Indic scripts. Apart from Urdu, Sindhi, Kashmiri and Thaana, all other Indic languages are written from left to right.

Examples SanskritOCR - OCR software for Sanskrit, Hindi and other Indo-Aryan languages based on the Devanagari script. Sanskrit OCR is developed by a Sanskrit scholar from Germany - Dr. Oliver Hellwig of Department for Languages and Cultures of Southern Asia, Freie Universität Berlin. The official website is in German. The interface of earlier versions of the software was also in German, but later versions have an English interface too. E-aksharayan - Optical character recognition engine for Indian languages Chitrankan - This technology was developed by ISI, Kolkata, and transferred to C-DAC. It processes printed Hindi text from a scanner or from an image. Indic OCR models for Tesseract (software)

OCR in use OCR has been used for Wikisource and other projects.

References

"Multilingual Computing & Heritage Computing". www.cdac.in. Retrieved 2017-02-12. Singh, Rustam (2016-04-16). "The Magic of OCR & Augmented Reality Translates text in Indian Languages, Real Time – Without Internet". Entrepreneur. Retrieved 2017-02-12. "Indian Language Technology Proliferation and Deployment Centre - Home". www.tdil-dc.in. Retrieved 2017-02-12. Pal, U.; Chaudhuri, B.B. (2004-09-01). "Indian script character recognition: a survey". Pattern Recognition. 37 (9): 1887–1899. doi:10.1016/j.patcog.2004.02.003. ISSN 0031-3203.

External links "SanskritOCR - Optical Text Recognition for Sanskrit Documents". "C-DAC: GIST - Products - Chitrankan". cdac.in. Retrieved 2017-02-12.

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Indic OCR

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Indic OCR claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In physics, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Indic OCR before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Indic OCR ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Indic OCR

In research: Indic OCR appears in physics research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Indic OCR in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Indic OCR is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Indic computing, Optical character recognition, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Indic OCR outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Indic OCR in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Indic OCR means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Indic OCR out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Indic OCR in simple terms?

Why does Indic OCR matter?

Because it connects several physics ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Indic OCR?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Indic OCR.