Preparing for OCR of Books Handled by Visually Impaired

The objective of this work is to synthesize the difficulties an algorithm must handle in book digitization for subsequent OCR application, such as angle correction, image distortion and words segmentation in addition to being operated by blind or visually impaired people real-time by video stream without further assistance. The developed method seems reliable, and provides good OCR results on a page by page basis. The results show improvements above 99,3 % in OCR performance in some cases, although execution time has increased. “The Vocalizer Project” emerged from a demand from the Brazilian Ministry of Culture and Education for application in schools and public libraries. It aims to create more inclusive smart cities. Furthermore, it is destined for the inclusion of visually impaired and blind people to the vast bibliographic material existent.