Routing of graphical information from a physical medium to an electronic, e-mail, address, e.g. for transmission of a digitally scanned postcard to an e-mail address

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The present invention relates to a method for routing graphic information carried by a material medium, to a recipient, and to a processing system for implementing the method. The present invention relates in particular to a method for conveying graphic information carried by a material medium of the postcard type and a corresponding processing system.

When a person wishes to send a postcard, from his vacation spot for example, to another person by the postal services, it is necessary to indicate on the postcard the postal address of the recipient. If the sender does not know the full postal address of the recipient, the postcard cannot be delivered by the postal services.

Furthermore, it is possible to send so-called electronic postcards to an electronic mail address, commonly called E-Mail (Electronic Mail) or e-mail, via a computer connected to the Internet network. A sender must know the recipient's email address, which is generally easier to remember than the recipient's mailing address because it is often based on the recipient's surname and / or first name, or may possibly retrieve the recipient's email address. recipient's email address from their email address book. However, accessibility to a computer connected to the Internet network is not so simple, especially compared to that of postal service mailboxes and the choice of electronic postcards for the issuing person is limited to those available on the network. .

The aim of the present invention is to overcome the aforementioned drawbacks by proposing a method which makes it possible to route at least the graphic information of a material medium, such as a postcard for example, to a recipient, when the issuing person does not know the mailing address of the latter.

To do this, the invention proposes a method of routing to a recipient the graphic information contained on a physical medium, for example a physical medium of the postcard type, the destination address of which is an electronic address.

In the present invention, the term hardware support designates any hardware support of non-zero mass. Any electronic file or collection of electronic files are not physical media. The term electronic address designates any address requiring electronic routing, in particular an e-mail address, an Internet Protocol address, a telephone number, whether the telephone is landline or mobile, wired or wireless, a facsimile number. A mailing address is not an email address. The term recipient designates the terminal or the system allowing the final reception of the material medium sent. The recipient of an email is the email inbox, whether public or private, remote or not. For example, if a person whose identity is X uses an email inbox under an identity of Y, the recipient of emails sent to X is not necessarily X, it can be Y. The term postcard designates any material postal support unfoldable or not, so as to obtain in all cases a material support with two flat faces, and the content of which is visible from the outside without any intrusion. An enclosed postcard is not a postcard.

A first object of the present invention is therefore a method of routing graphic information carried by a physical medium to a recipient, said graphic information being distributed at least partially over at least one face of said medium and containing at least one graphic representation. an address of the recipient and a graphic representation of a first message of the text and / or illustration type, said method comprising sending said material medium to a processing system, characterized in that said address is an electronic address and said processing system implements the following steps:

- acquisition by digitization of the image of the graphic information on the face (s) of the material support,

- identification in said scanned image of the electronic address,

- extraction of said electronic address identified by character recognition,

transmission, by a telecommunications network connected to said processing system, of a second message relating to the digitized image of said graphic information to the extracted electronic address.

Advantageously, when the graphic information is distributed over both sides of a substantially flat two-sided material medium, of the postcard type, and when the graphic representation of the electronic address is on only one of these two sides, the step of acquisition by digitization comprises the acquisition of the image of a first face of the material support and the acquisition of the image of the second face of said material support, the identification step optionally comprising the determination from among the two digitized images of the image containing the electronic address.

According to one particular feature, said processing system performs a step of recording the image or digitized images and the extracted electronic address in at least one electronic database.

According to one embodiment, said processing system performs a step of formatting the image or images recorded, the second message comprising the image or images formatted.

According to another feature, said processing system performs a step of generating a computer consultation link, associated with the image (s), for example of the hypertext link type, allowing the recipient to consult the associated image (s) online, the second message sent comprising said consultation link.

Advantageously, the method according to the invention makes it possible to route the material medium, the destination address of which is an electronic address. To do this, said processing system performs a step of generating a request link associated with the image (s), allowing the recipient to request receipt of the material medium, the second message comprising said request link.

Advantageously, to facilitate the routing of the material medium itself, said processing system performs a step of referencing the material medium consisting in affixing a reference to the material medium, recording said reference on an electronic database, and associating said reference at the second link.

According to one embodiment, said processing system performs an identification step in the digitized image (s) of the text of the first message, for example by character recognition or graphic recognition, a step of extracting said identified text by character recognition , a step of transforming said extracted text into sound by voice synthesis, and a step of recording said sound in a database, the second message comprising said sound.

Advantageously, said processing system simultaneously acquires the image of the second face of a first material medium and the acquisition of the image of the first side of a second material medium.

A second object of the present invention is to provide a processing system for implementing the method intended in particular for postal services. The processing system according to the invention is characterized in that it comprises an image acquisition module comprising at least one image acquisition means by digitization capable of acquiring the image of a substantially planar face. material media, routing means suitable for routing the material media to said image acquisition means, and a computer processing unit, to which said image acquisition means is connected, comprising character recognition software for extracting the electronic addresses contained in the images and optionally for the prior identification of said electronic addresses, at least one database for recording the scanned images and the extracted electronic addresses, means for transmitting second messages relating to the digitized images of said graphic information to a communication network to which said computer processing unit is connected.

According to one embodiment, the image acquisition module comprises two image acquisition means, a first acquisition means capable of acquiring the image of a first face of a substantially flat material support with two faces, of postcard type, and a second acquisition means capable of acquiring the image of the second face of the material medium.

According to one embodiment, the conveying means comprise at least one motorized conveyor with endless transparent belt, the two acquisition means being arranged on either side of said transparent belt.

Advantageously, the conveying means comprise two conveyors, the endless transparent bands of which are arranged opposite each other, substantially parallel, on the transport path of the material support, and between which the material supports are intended to be sandwiched. to ensure the flatness of the support during the acquisition of the images.

According to one feature, the two acquisition means are offset along said material medium transport path.

According to one embodiment, the processing system comprises a means for receiving material support and an extraction module capable of extracting a material medium from said receiving means in order to transport it to the image acquisition module.

According to another particular feature, the processing system comprises a referencing module capable of affixing a reference to the material medium coming out of the image acquisition module, said referencing module being connected to said processing unit for recording the image. reference in the database.

Advantageously, said processing unit comprises image pre-processing software, and / or link generation means intended to be sent to the electronic address to allow the recipient of the electronic address to request receipt of the medium. material and / or to consult the images of the database associated with the e-mail address, and / or software for formatting information relating to a physical medium and / or software for transforming text into sound and / or graphics recognition software for the identification of electronic addresses.

The invention will be better understood, and other aims, details, characteristics and advantages will emerge more clearly during the detailed explanatory description which follows of a particular currently preferred embodiment of the method and of a treatment system according to the invention, with reference to the accompanying schematic drawing.

On this drawing :

FIG. 1 represents a diagram illustrating the steps of the method according to the invention for the routing to an electronic address of the graphic information of a postcard according to the invention;

FIG. 2 represents a diagram illustrating the steps of the method according to the invention for the delivery of the postcard itself;

FIG. 3 schematically represents the extraction module, the image acquisition module and the referencing module of the processing system according to one embodiment of the invention; and,

FIG. 4 schematically represents a computer processing unit of the system according to one embodiment of the invention.

A description of a method of conveying postcards whose recipient address (s) are electronic addresses of the electronic mail or e-mail address type will now be made with reference to FIGS. 1 and 2.

The postcard must be unfoldable or not so as to obtain a flat two-sided document. The graphic information of the postcard is distributed on both sides and contains a graphic representation of the recipient's e-mail address and a graphic representation of a text and illustration type message. For example, the postcard includes an illustration, such as a photograph or drawing, on one side and text and email address written by the sending party on its other side. For the person issuing the postcard, the only difference in the wording of the postcard, compared to a postcard sent by postal services in a conventional manner, concerns the address of the recipient, which must be an electronic address. The email address may possibly be written in a box on the postcard and provided for this purpose. The postcard is for example then franked and mailed to the postal services in the same way as a postcard whose address is not an electronic address. Postcards are collected by the postal services which direct any postcard whose address is an electronic address to a single postal address per country, this postal address being the address of a processing center for these postcards. Audit processing center, postcards, unfolded if necessary, are placed in a processing system. Referring to Figure 1, after this step of sending to the processing and positioning center 1 in the processing system, the postcards are extracted one by one to be processed in step 2. For each postcard, the method according to the invention comprises a first step 3 of acquiring the image of one of the two sides of the postcard, hereinafter called image A, then a step of acquiring the image of the other side of the postcard, hereinafter referred to as image B.

To enable the recipient to receive the postcard itself, as described below, the postcard is then referenced in step 5 by affixing a reference thereto, and the affixed reference is recorded on a database a computer processing unit in step 6. The postcard is then archived manually in step 7.

A step 8 of extracting the electronic address specified on the postcard is then carried out from the images A and B as follows. Computer processing makes it possible on the one hand to determine which of the image A and of the image B contains the electronic address, and on the other hand to isolate the smallest surface containing the electronic address. Handwritten or non-handwritten character recognition software then makes it possible to identify the recipient's email address. This software then performs an automatic extraction of the email address. Images containing the email address that are rejected by this software can be presented to one or more operators, who manually enter the email address on a computer. The identification of the electronic address could also be carried out by graphic recognition software.

Once the e-mail address has been identified and extracted, all the elements relating to the postcard which are necessary and sufficient for sending the graphic information it contains are recorded in a database DB in step 9, namely image A, image B, the recipient's email address. The reference of the postcard is stored in the database DB in a parallel and independent manner, as described previously. Multiple email addresses can be specified on the postcard; in this case, each of them is identified, extracted, and recorded in the database DB as described previously.

Once all the elements necessary and sufficient for sending the graphic information contained in the postcard, including the reference of the postcard, have been recorded in the database, a link generation step 10 is carried out. This step 10 comprises the generation of a request link allowing the recipient to request receipt of the postcard itself. This request link can be an electronic link or of any other nature, such as a telephone or facsimile number, or a postal address for example. In the case of an electronic request link, this is directly associated with an identifier of the postcard constituted by the reference recorded on the database. In the case of a telephone or postal link, the link includes a telephone or facsimile number, or a postal address, as well as an identifier consisting of the reference recorded on the database itself or a code associated with this one. This step 10 also includes the generation of an electronic consultation link allowing the recipient to consult online the graphic information contained in the postcard. This consultation link is unique and will be sent only to the recipient for reasons of confidentiality. Link generation methods that exist in most electronic postcard sending and receiving websites can be used here for generating the lookup link according to the invention.

Once the two links have been generated, we proceed, in step 11, to the formatting of all the elements recorded in the database DB concerning the postcard, namely the image A, the image B and the links, depending on the medium used for the broadcast, then these formatted elements are sent to the extracted email address. For formatting, images can be arranged next to each other, or one above the other, etc. You can surround them with frames, add a logo, etc. The links generated in step 10 are also included in this formatting. In the present case where the electronic address is an email address, the transmission of the graphic information contained in the postcard is made in the form of an email, to the extracted email address. If more than one email address is specified on the postcard, the email is sent to all of those email addresses. The A and B images and the links concerning the postcard can then be put in an HTML page, then the HTML page is sent by the MIME protocol, that is to say as an attachment to the email. You can also place the generated links in the content of the email, and the two images attached to the email. You can also format the elements concerning the postcard in a file of any other format, and send this file as an attachment to the email. Alternatively, only the two links can be placed in the email, and the recipient, by clicking on the electronic viewing link, is brought online to viewing the A and B images stored on the database.

According to the method according to the invention, the recipient of the graphic information contained in the postcard can request the receipt of the postcard itself by means of the telephone or facsimile, postal, electronic request link or by any another link sent to him. The identifier of the postcard, previously generated automatically and communicated to the recipient, implicitly in the form of an electronic link, or explicitly in any other link, makes it possible to find the archived postcard. In the case of an electronic request link, by clicking on said link, the recipient is brought online, to confirm his request to receive the postcard itself, a request which may or may not be chargeable, and to indicate a postal address of destination. In the case of a postal request link, the recipient can send a franked envelope at the appropriate rate to the postal link indicated, indicating the identifier of the desired postcard, and indicating on the envelope a postal address of destination.

Provision can be made for this request from the recipient to be accepted or not by the sending person or for the request link not to be generated or sent to the recipient according to the wishes of the sending person. A font or graphic acronym, identifiable by the aforementioned character recognition software, can be established to take into account the wishes of the sender concerning the sending of the postcard itself. In addition, the postcard is a material medium and cannot be sent to several recipients. In this case, provision may be made for no request link to be generated or for the request link to be sent to the first electronic address indicated on the postcard, or to that marked with a graphic acronym identifiable by the software. character recognition.

With reference to FIG. 2, for any request 14 sent by the recipient of receipt of the postcard itself, the method comprises a step 14 of searching for the postcard referenced from the request link, a step 15 of inscription, by printing or manually, of the postal address of the recipient indicated by the recipient himself on the postcard, then a step 16 of redistribution of the postcard by the postal services to the recipient's postal address.

A processing system according to the invention will now be described with reference to Figures 3 and 4.

The processing system 20 comprises a storage module 21 in which the postcards 16 are placed in groups by an operator, and a module 22 for extracting the postcards one by one from the storage module 21, automatically, and bringing each postcard up to an image acquisition module 30. The extraction can be done horizontally, vertically or at an angle, with vibration of the postcards or not. Rack-and-pinion systems for postcards or for extracting postcards one by one by means of a suction cup, known in the postal services, can be used here. As illustrated in FIG. 4, the postcards are for example placed horizontally in an input bench 21 and the extraction module comprises a suction cup system 22, movable vertically along the arrow El and horizontally along the arrow E2, which makes it possible to grab a postcard in the test bench 21, lift it vertically upwards, move it horizontally above a horizontal linear conveyor 23, and place it on said conveyor. The conveyor 23 comprises a belt 24 driven in rotation, as represented by the arrow L3, around two rollers 25, 26, a first and a second roller arranged respectively near the input bench 21 and near the module of image acquisition 30. By way of example, only the first roller 25 is driven in rotation by an electric motor.

The image acquisition module 30 comprises two linear conveyors, a lower conveyor 31 and an upper conveyor 32 defining between them a passage or transport path 33 for the postcards. Each conveyor 31, 32 comprises an endless transparent belt 34 driven in rotation around four drive rollers. Each conveyor comprises a first substantially horizontal portion 35 disposed between an input roller 37 and an output roller 38 of the image acquisition module, the axes of the input and output rollers of the two conveyors being arranged parallel to each other. , so that the first two portions 35 are arranged opposite each other, being spaced apart by a determined distance which defines said transport path 33 for postcards. Each conveyor comprises two other so-called offset drive rollers 39, defining between them a second portion 36 of the conveyor which is substantially parallel to the first portion 35, and arranged so as to form a free space between the first portion 35 and the second portion 36 sufficient to receive an image acquisition means consisting of a line camera.

A first linear camera 40 for acquiring the image of a first face 17 of postcards 16 is mounted between the first and second portions of the upper conveyor 32, and a second linear camera 41, identical to the first, is mounted between the first and second portions of the lower conveyor 31. According to the diagram of FIG. 3, the objective of the first linear camera 40 is oriented downwards and that of the second camera 41 is oriented upward. The two cameras 40, 41 are offset along the transport path 33, the first camera 40 being arranged on the side of the input rollers 37 and the second camera 41 on the side of the output rollers 38. The line cameras are connected to the computer processing unit 50 described below. The use of such conveyors with transparent belts ensures visibility of all of the two sides of the postcard by the line cameras and also makes it possible to flatten the postcards and to keep them flat, which avoids reflections during printing. acquisition of images by linear cameras. Furthermore, the staggered arrangement of the cameras makes it possible to provide the cameras with flash, which will be activated during the simultaneous acquisition of the images, so as to obtain good image quality. Indeed, in the case of two linear cameras arranged opposite for the simultaneous acquisition of two images of the same postcard, the use of two flashes opposite is not possible or , does not provide good image quality.

The conveyors 31, 32 are rotated in opposite directions so that the bands 34 at the level of the first two portions 35 of the conveyors move in the same direction, from left to right in Figure 3, as shown by the arrows F4 and F5. By way of example, only the input rollers 37 of the two conveyors are driven in rotation by two synchronized motors or by the same motor by means of a gear system, the input roller 37 of the upper conveyor 32 rotating. counterclockwise and that of the lower conveyor 31 clockwise.

The first portion 35 of the lower conveyor is arranged in the extension of the conveyor of the extraction system, the axes of the two rollers of the conveyor 23 and those of the output and input rollers of the lower conveyor 31 being arranged in parallel along the same plane. The distance between the second roller 26 of the conveyor 23 and the input roller 37 is defined such that when the end of a postcard enters the transport path 33, being clamped between the two bands 34, said postcard still rests on the belt 24 of the conveyor 23.

The processing system further comprises a referencing module 42 disposed at the output of the image acquisition module 30. The referencing module comprises a conveyor 43 with an endless belt 46 driven in rotation, along the arrow F7, around a first and a second roller 44, 45, the first roller 44 being disposed near the output rollers 38 of the conveyors 31, 32 of the image acquisition module. This conveyor 43 is arranged in the extension of the first portion of the lower conveyor 31, the axes of its two rollers and those of the output and input rollers 37, 38 of the lower conveyor being arranged in parallel along the same plane. The distance between the first roller 44 of the conveyor 43 and the exit roller 38 of the lower conveyor is defined so that when the end of a postcard comes to rest on the belt 46 of the conveyor 43, a part of said postcard is still in the transport path, clamped between the bands 34 at the level of the two exit rollers. The referencing module 42 comprises a labeling system 47 mounted above the conveyor 43 which, by vertical displacement along the arrow F6, makes it possible to stick on the upper face of a postcard present on the conveyor 43 a label on which a reference and possibly the date and time have been printed beforehand. This labeling module 47 is connected to the processing unit for recording the reference in a database. As a variant, the referencing module can make it possible to print a reference directly on the postcard, without sticking a label.

On leaving the referencing module 42, the postcards are archived by one or more operators so that they can be found simply, manually. An automatic classification and archiving system, already existing and operational in industrial logistics / archiving factories, can also be used for the archiving of postcards.

For the acquisition of the images, the conveyors 31, 32 are immobilized for a short determined period, of the order of one second. During this period of immobilization, the second line camera 41 acquires the image of the lower face 18a of a first postcard 16a, and the first line camera 40 acquires the image of the face. top 17b of a second postcard 16b, as shown in Figure 3. The image of the upper face 17a of the first postcard 16a will of course have been acquired by the first camera 40 during the previous immobilization. During this period of immobilization, the labeling system 47 affixes a label to the postcard placed on the conveyor 43, and the module 22 extracts a postcard from the input bench 21 to place it on the conveyor 23. After this period of immobilization, the conveyors 31, 32 convey the first postcard 16a at the output of the image acquisition module to the referencing module, and the second postcard opposite the camera 4L Simultaneously , the conveyor 23 conveys another postcard to the input of the image acquisition module, said postcard then being conveyed by the conveyors 31, 32 opposite the camera 40. The conveyors 31, 32 are then immobilized to carry out another cycle. The conveyors 23 and 43 can optionally be immobilized during the aforementioned immobilization period.

With reference to FIG. 4, the processing system comprises a computer processing unit 50 comprising a personal computer 51, a database (BD) 52, an e-mail server 53 and a web server 54, connected by a local area network LAN 55 The local network 55 is connected via a firewall 56 to a telecommunications network 57, in particular the Internet network. The two cameras 40 and 41, as well as the labeling system 42 are connected to the personal computer 51 on which are installed, an image preprocessing software 511, a character recognition software 512, an image processing software. link generation 513, and formatting software 514. The image pre-processing software 511 makes it possible to pre-process the images sent by the cameras 40, 41: positioning, cropping, brightness, contrast, colors, memory size, etc. The 512 character recognition software identifies the recipient's email address and extracts it from preprocessed images. This software 512 can further perform computer processing to determine which of the two images of a postcard contains the electronic address, and / or to isolate the smaller area containing the electronic address. Postcards with a dedicated box, or any other mark, for the registration of the electronic address can optionally be provided specifically for the present system according to the invention. Once the e-mail address has been extracted, the pre-processed images and the e-mail address of the postcard are recorded in the database 52. The reference of the postcard, communicated by the labeling module 47, is also recorded in the database. database. The link generation software 513 makes it possible to generate the consultation links and the request link described above. The formatting software 514 makes it possible to format the images and the links of each postcard for their emission in the form of e-mail. The e-mail server 53 makes it possible to send e-mails to the recipient 58 via the telecommunications network 57. The web server 54 allows the recipient to consult the images recorded on the database 52 and to receive the request to receive the postcard sent by the recipient by means of the electronic request link contained in the email.

The use of two transparent belt conveyors in combination with two cameras makes it possible to avoid any step of turning the postcards which would slow down the processing and increase the complexity of the system. The processing system described here makes it possible to process postcards at a rate of one postcard per second, and thus to achieve industrial constraints in terms of postcard traffic.

Simple variants of the processing method and system described above allow the routing of graphic information carried by a postcard whose destination address is a telephone number, whether the telephone is landline or mobile, with or wireless, a facsimile number or an Internet Protocol address.

In the case of a fax number, the graphic information carried by the postcard is sent in the form of an image as in the case of an electronic address consisting of an email address. The process is similar to that of sending an email. The e-mail server 53 is replaced by a facsimile server, and the processing system is also connected to the telephone network. In addition, the layout of the images and links differs. The recipient of the facsimile may retrieve the postcard itself by replying by fax, telephone, postal mail, or the Internet.

In the case of a fixed or mobile telephone number, only the text type graphic information carried by the postcard is sent in the form of sound. Once the images have been acquired, the telephone number is extracted, and also the text appearing on each of the two images by the character recognition software 512. The extracted text is transformed into sound, by voice synthesis, by means of software for transforming text into sound 515 installed on the personal computer. The sound is then communicated to the owner of the telephone number. In the case of a fixed telephone number, the sound is sent synchronously by a dedicated server, with repeated deferred forwarding if the recipient is not available. In the case of a mobile telephone number, the sound is sent asynchronously, to the VMS (Voice Mail System) voice mailbox, by another dedicated server. As previously, the e-mail server 53 is replaced by a facsimile server, the processing system is also linked to one or more telephone networks, and the recovery of the postcard can be done by fax, telephone, postal mail, or the Internet.

In the case of an Internet Protocol (IP) address, the graphic information carried by the postcard can be sent in the form of an image and / or sound. Sending to a given IP address with a given port requires, depending on the port number, the sending of graphic information in image form only or in graphic and sound form only. The sending is done by a server using the communication protocol corresponding to the specified port, for example port = 80: sending by the http protocol; port = 21: send by FTP; etc ... An electronic request link will be communicated if the communication protocol supports it.

Although the invention has been described in connection with a particular embodiment, it is obvious that it is in no way limited thereto and that it comprises all the technical equivalents of the means described as well as their combinations if these come within the scope of the invention.