Looking for an OCR package with ‘snap’ facilities

[GreensandsParticipant @greensands]

A little off topic perhaps but is anyone aware of a freely available OCR package that would be able to read a hand drawn flowchart from a A3/A4 sized master copy, the object being for the software package to ‘snap’ all the hand drawn links into well defined rectilinear straight lines. All suggestions gratefully received.

[GreensandsParticipant @greensands]

I hope I can be excused for re–booting this thread in order to hopfully get a reply but I am very interested to receive some response. I realised it is a little off beat but I am rather hoping that someone like Silly Old Duffer with his inexhaustible store of knowledge might have something to add.

[SillyOldDufferModerator @sillyoldduffer]

Sorry Greensands,  I don’t have an answer.

🙁

Dave

[DC31kParticipant @dc31k]

An OCR package, as the acronym suggests, will specialise in Recognising Characters Optically. Lines, links and other flowchart items are not characters.

If the original is A3, why not redraw from scratch? There is a good piece of freeware called Dia, which is very suitable for the task.

You could run the original through a standard OCR program to extract the text, but it would likely take longer to edit and organise it for insertion into a new chart than biting the bullet and typing it in from scratch.

[MacolmParticipant @macolm]

No magic suggestions, but you can import a sketch into a (2D) drafting package such as QCAD, set it as a (reduced brightness) background layer, and use that as a template or instruction sheet to make the real drawing in the top layer. Of course this only saves a little effort, but it can be a useful technique. The sketch image can be resized so as to match the necessary scaling, perhaps more than once as things pan out. You would just type any text, but at least it should be as correct as you wrote it down.

[GreensandsParticipant @greensands]

Other possible applications for the sought after software might include hand drawn family trees with their vertical and horizontal links.

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

The best I can suggest at the moment is TouchDraw2

It includes image import, layers, grids, flow-charting, etc. … which although not the ‘OCR’ that you are seeking, should make re-drawing a simple matter.

I’ve only used the iOS version, but it’s also available for Windows and Mac.

Have a look here:

https://www.elevenworks.com/touchdraw

https://www.elevenworks.com/touchdraw/documentation

… and also here:

https://www.elevenworks.com/touchdraw/VisioToTouchdraw

 

MichaelG.

[John HaineParticipant @johnhaine32865]

Or libre office draw which is part of a free highly capable office suite.

https://www.libreoffice.org/

[Beardy MikeParticipant @beardymike]

<p style=”text-align: center;”>You could try chucking it at chatgpt – sometimes it extracts information from images really well and can do wonders, other times it can completely misunderstand. It’d only take 5mins to find out which</p>

[Clive FosterParticipant @clivefoster55965]

Theoretically ReadIris implies that it can OCR and reproduce a flow chat with the boxes in the right place.

Dammed if I could manage to make it do so though.

Given that it’s supposed to be a professional package ReadIris doesn’t work very well. Coercing it to properly reproduce page images is stupidly hard and Word export loads inaccurate ton of formatting characters that take an age to extract if you aren’t a Word expert. I’ve always found it incredibly difficult to strip out all the lock things in place formatting crap from Word.

Clive

[MacolmParticipant @macolm]

To illustrate how much or how little a CAD package ploy may help, here is an example where an old double socket box had to be replaced with a modern version. The box image can be disappeared by switching off visibility of its layer, and the fixing dimensions were simply left as 10 times actual millimeter numbers.

A lot of CAD applications allow this sort of working. I like QCAD because it suits my disfunctional work flow! The most common “rescue” functions for me are draw offset line, extend/shorten, break out segment, and cut/paste with reference. This avoids the need for a competent plan when you start.

 

[John HaineParticipant @johnhaine32865]

As others have suggested, I think your best bet would be to recreate the document in a drawing package – by the time you’ve drawn a blank on finding an automatic solution, learned to use it, scanned and corrected the file you could have redrawn it twice over I expect!

I recommended LibreOffice Draw as I know it works well and has useful tools for creating flowcharts, and it’s FREE!  It also comes as part of a suite of tools that compete well with Microsoft Office without all the AI bloat that Microsoft are adding – and its document and spreadsheet files are compatible too.

I’ve no experience with TouchDraw but I think you have to pay which is a disadvantage if you don’t know if it will suit you.

[SillyOldDufferModerator @sillyoldduffer]

It’s the OCR part that’s difficult.   Most drawing packages support a tracing paper approach in which an underlying image is used as a guide to manually do what’s needed.   Works well for simple jobs, but the method doesn’t scale well.   A big flowchart that’s not already in good order will take a very long time to fix.

Giant flowcharts and similar are often not drawn by humans at all.   Instead, the links and required format are defined in a text file that’s rendered by software.  Graphviz dot is an open source example.  Doesn’t do OCR though:  Greensands would have to learn how to program dot, and then manually create the definition.  Whilst dot is a much more efficient way of tackling hefty graphs than a drawing tool, it’s still lots of hard work.   And the learning curve is Intimidating.

If anyone identifies an OCR package that works well in this application, I shall be grateful!

Dave

 

 

[SillyOldDuffer]

On SillyOldDuffer Said:

[…] If anyone identifies an OCR package that works well in this application, I shall be grateful!

Dave

 

 

Drifting rather a long way from the brief [who, moi?] … can I put-in a good word for an iOS App called Photo Translator

Its performance is astonishing.

MichaelG.

.

Ref. https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/photo-translator-translate/id1359014928

[John HinkleyParticipant @johnhinkley26699]

With little else to do except put off mowing the lawn, I have found this program through a search:

Sketch2Scheme OCR program

which at first sight does most, if not all, of what your initial post asks.  I have not downloaded it as I have no such requirement, so I don’t know if it requires registering and/or payment.

John

 

[DC31kParticipant @dc31k]

It would be helpful if the OP would upload a very high quality image of the flowchart* then anyone who wants to have a play can do so.

* give people a fighting chance – not some dark, out of focus, distorted phone camera snapshot from 15 degrees off plane in one direction, 12.7 degrees in the other and 5 degrees rotated (skewed). Scan to a USB drive on an A3 photocopier (around here it will cost you £1).

[Steve FParticipant @stevef]

Hello

Are you thinking of scanning the document and then using OCR to create the drawing.

If so your scan will produce a raster image but you need a vector image to be able to snap in a CAD package.

Why not scan it as jpg, bmp or png etc and then use an online tool like https://convertio.co/

You upload the jpg and can get it converted to DXF for your CAD. I use Libracad

regards

Steve

[John Haine]

On John Haine Said:

Or libre office draw which is part of a free highly capable office suite.

https://www.libreoffice.org/

I second Libre Office Draw. Great for flowcharts and wiring diagrams. Very simple. Best and cheapest – free..

[Author]

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