Character recognition system utilizing pattern matching method

DETAILED DESCRIPTION According to the present invention, there is provided a character recognition system in which black and white meshes in a plurality of standard masks are stored in respective areas of a standard mask memory.
The meshes having a same position in the standard masks are stored at the same bit position (the same row) in each area of the standard mask memory.
An input pattern is stored in an input pattern memory.
The meshes in the input pattern memory are sequentially read out.
This read out, along with the address of the read out, forms the "read out address data".
The standard mask meshes are then read out simultaneously (with respect to the standard masks) in response to positions and contents of the read out input pattern meshes; that is, the contents of a specific row of the standard mask memory are read out when addressed by the read out address data.
The read out of the addressed standard mask meshes is counted in respective counters provided in correspondence with the read out of the standard masks.
A final recognition is achieved by use of the contents of the counters.