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Improving Polytonic Greek OCR

Posted: May 16th, 2014, 6:07 pm
by Jonathan Robie
Bruce Robertson and I have been discussing an idea for improving polytonic Greek OCR. He needs people who will correct specific sets of pages in OCR output to help improve OCR recognition. I suggested that we could have threads along these lines:

1. The first page in a thread has an attached image and the OCR output
2. We ask for volunteers to look at a handful of pages and their output, and correct that output
3. Bruce uses this to improve recognition in his OCR engine, then posts the new OCR output for the original image

We are thinking it might be interesting and useful to start with Migne.

Would this be a good project on B-Greek, or does it belong elsewhere?

Not so interesting for Greek orchid growing enthusiasts

Posted: May 17th, 2014, 1:35 am
by Stephen Hughes
Jonathan Robie wrote:Bruce Robertson ... needs people who will correct specific sets of pages in OCR output to help improve OCR recognition.
Do OCR readers recognise characters on a typeface by typeface basis, or does the machine get trained on all possible typefaces, and then work out itself which one it is looking at? Will there be a Migne OCR recognition set, then another for a different typeface?
Jonathan Robie wrote:Would this be a good project on B-Greek, or does it belong elsewhere?
Probably of more interest here on the B-Greek forum, than on the Φόρουμ της Ελληνικής Εταιρείας Φίλων Ορχιδέας / Greek Orchid Society forum.

Seriously, though, a forum (orchid or otherwise) is a more or less "permanent" record of things and what you are proposing is a work in progress. Something like:
ΚαῑααραιΝιιῃΧωνΑΠ, ἒ τῑολὺ ηὐξηυὲυος, εὐμε- ηολυαρκὲς τῆς τα ιχείσς· 3) τὸ ὰρσ. ιιολυ- γὲθης, ευμήκης, Ισχυρὸςε Νικ.Θηρ.73 ηολυαυξής
will not be of lasting interst after the project is over. Perhaps he could email the OCR garble to people who were willing to correct it. On an orchid forum at least, people want to see a record of pictures of the beautiful flowers at their best.

Re: Improving Polytonic Greek OCR

Posted: May 17th, 2014, 5:05 am
by Louis L Sorenson
I think it would be a good endeavor. Though most likely only a few will participate. I'd also like to be able to recognize the font in which any given text is printed: Porson, etc.

Re: Improving Polytonic Greek OCR

Posted: May 17th, 2014, 6:37 am
by Barry Hofstetter
I think it would be a good thing. Migne would be excellent.

Re: Not so interesting for Greek orchid growing enthusiasts

Posted: May 17th, 2014, 8:03 am
by cwconrad
Stephen Hughes wrote:
Jonathan Robie wrote:Would this be a good project on B-Greek, or does it belong elsewhere?
Probably of more interest here on the B-Greek forum, than on the Φόρουμ της Ελληνικής Εταιρείας Φίλων Ορχιδέας / Greek Orchid Society forum.

Seriously, though, a forum (orchid or otherwise) is a more or less "permanent" record of things and what you are proposing is a work in progress. Something like "[...]" will not be of lasting interest after the project is over. Perhaps he could email the OCR garble to people who were willing to correct it. On an orchid forum at least, people want to see a record of pictures of the beautiful flowers at their best.
Pindar, Pyth. 8.95-97 wrote:ἐπάμεροι: τί δέ τις; τί δ᾽ οὔ τις; σκιᾶς ὄναρ
ἄνθρωπος. ἀλλ᾽ ὅταν αἴγλα διόσδοτος ἔλθῃ,
λαμπρὸν φέγγος ἔπεστιν ἀνδρῶν καὶ μείλιχος αἰών::
What's ephemeral and what's permanent is more subjective than we'd like to think. I'd love to see new fragments of Sappho as others might love to look at a scrap of Origen. B-Greek archives of the email list of olden days and of the forum, contain both trinkets and treasures. Sifting them might be a matter of taste: whose?

Re: Not so interesting for Greek orchid growing enthusiasts

Posted: May 17th, 2014, 9:25 am
by Jonathan Robie
Stephen Hughes wrote:Seriously, though, a forum (orchid or otherwise) is a more or less "permanent" record of things and what you are proposing is a work in progress. Something like:
ΚαῑααραιΝιιῃΧωνΑΠ, ἒ τῑολὺ ηὐξηυὲυος, εὐμε- ηολυαρκὲς τῆς τα ιχείσς· 3) τὸ ὰρσ. ιιολυ- γὲθης, ευμήκης, Ισχυρὸςε Νικ.Θηρ.73 ηολυαυξής
will not be of lasting interst after the project is over. Perhaps he could email the OCR garble to people who were willing to correct it. On an orchid forum at least, people want to see a record of pictures of the beautiful flowers at their best.
I think it's like the "before" and "after" pictures on a fitness site, you need both to tell the story.

Mechanics v. beauty.

Posted: May 17th, 2014, 9:28 am
by Stephen Hughes
cwconrad wrote:
Pindar, Pyth. 8.95-97 wrote:ἐπάμεροι: τί δέ τις; τί δ᾽ οὔ τις; σκιᾶς ὄναρ
ἄνθρωπος. ἀλλ᾽ ὅταν αἴγλα διόσδοτος ἔλθῃ,
λαμπρὸν φέγγος ἔπεστιν ἀνδρῶν καὶ μείλιχος αἰών::
What's ephemeral and what's permanent is more subjective than we'd like to think. I'd love to see new fragments of Sappho as others might love to look at a scrap of Origen. B-Greek archives of the email list of olden days and of the forum, contain both trinkets and treasures. Sifting them might be a matter of taste: whose?
I am, perhaps, just beginning to understand the mechanics of this language, but you have long ago found its beauty.

The "before" and "after" shots.

Posted: May 17th, 2014, 9:32 am
by Stephen Hughes
Jonathan Robie wrote:
Stephen Hughes wrote:Seriously, though, a forum (orchid or otherwise) is a more or less "permanent" record of things and what you are proposing is a work in progress. Something like:
ΚαῑααραιΝιιῃΧωνΑΠ, ἒ τῑολὺ ηὐξηυὲυος, εὐμε- ηολυαρκὲς τῆς τα ιχείσς· 3) τὸ ὰρσ. ιιολυ- γὲθης, ευμήκης, Ισχυρὸςε Νικ.Θηρ.73 ηολυαυξής
will not be of lasting interst after the project is over. Perhaps he could email the OCR garble to people who were willing to correct it. On an orchid forum at least, people want to see a record of pictures of the beautiful flowers at their best.
I think it's like the "before" and "after" pictures on a fitness site, you need both to tell the story.
You are probably right. (After staying with my mother and auntie for a few months, every morning's mirror lets me understand quite well what you mean by the "before" picture).

Re: Improving Polytonic Greek OCR

Posted: May 17th, 2014, 9:47 am
by Jonathan Robie
In 10 years, I bet Polytonic Greek OCR will "just work" the same way that Unicode and fonts "just work" these days (if you're not using an Android). And it would be nice to have a historical record to show the work that people like Bruce and Nick are doing to make this happen. People will forget that this was once hard.

Re: Improving Polytonic Greek OCR

Posted: May 17th, 2014, 9:55 am
by cwconrad
Jonathan Robie wrote:In 10 years, I bet Polytonic Greek OCR will "just work" the same way that Unicode and fonts "just work" these days (if you're not using an Android). And it would be nice to have a historical record to show the work that people like Bruce and Nick are doing to make this happen. People will forget that this was once hard.
One of the neatest secondary benefits of our having the texts of Homer is that we are privileged to explore the archaeology of the Greek language. The reconstruction of every kind of history is a never-ending challenge as well as a fascinating pastime.