Recognising Text

Recognising text is as simple as calling the recognise function with the BitmapData you wish to scan.

The result is then returned in the OCREvent.RECOGNISE event.

For example:

OCR.service.addEventListener( OCREvent.RECOGNISE, ocr_recogniseHandler );
OCR.service.recognise( bitmapData );

Then in your event handler:

private function ocr_recogniseHandler( event:OCREvent ):void
{
    trace( "RECOGNISED: " );
    trace( event.text );
}

If an error occurred during the process a OCREvent.RECOGNISE_ERROR event will be dispatched and there will be no complete event. You should make sure you handle this case.

OCR.service.addEventListener( OCREvent.RECOGNISE_ERROR, ocr_recogniseErrorHandler );

private function ocr_recogniseErrorHandler( event:OCREvent ):void
{
    trace( "Error occurred" );
}

Image Data

The bitmapData should be a BitmapData instance containing the bitmap data of the image you are scanning.

For example if we were to use an embedded image:

[Embed(source="image_sample.jpg")]
public var Image:Class;

var image:Bitmap = new Image() as Bitmap;

OCR.service.recognise( image.bitmapData );

Or to load from a URL using a Loader:

var imageLoader:Loader = new Loader();
imageLoader.load( new URLRequest( "http://example.com/image.jpg" ));
imageLoader.contentLoaderInfo.addEventListener(Event.COMPLETE, loaded);

function loaded(e:Event):void
{
    var image:Bitmap = e.target.content;

    OCR.service.recognise( image.bitmapData );
}

Specifying Options

You can control some aspects of the scanning process by supplying an OCROptions instance to the recognise function. The options allow you to specify some parameters that will be used in the algorithm, such as the language and whitelist characters.

For example:

var options:OCROptions = new OCROptions();
options.language = "eng";
options.whitelist = "0123456789.,€$";

OCR.service.recognise( bitmapData, options );