Unified OCR
Introduction
Unified OCR is a new product from Alibaba Cloud's Optical Character Recognition (OCR) team. A single API integrates 59 recognition capabilities for various scenarios, making integration simpler and more efficient. This lowers the barrier to entry for customers who need to integrate multiple OCR capabilities.
Features
Recognize documents from 59 single-document and mixed-document scenarios with a single API.
Covers six major categories: general text, personal IDs and documents, vehicle and logistics documents, invoices and receipts, business qualifications, and mixed documents.
Mixed document recognition supports combinations of images from the personal ID, vehicle and logistics, invoice and receipt, and business qualification categories. These categories are detailed in the table below. However, the following document types are not supported for mixed recognition: Vehicle VIN, License Plate, E-waybill, International Passport, International ID Card, Official Seal, Medical Device Business Permit, Medical Device Manufacturing Permit, Cosmetics Manufacturing Permit, International Business License, Trademark Registration Certificate, Food Business Permit, Food Production Permit, Class-II Medical Device Operation Filing Certificate, or Bank Account Opening Permit.
The following figure shows the supported detection capabilities:
Scenario | Capability Type | ||
General Text Recognition (8 types) | |||
QR Code | Barcode | ||
Personal ID and Document Recognition (13 types) | |||
Exit-Entry Permit for Travelling to and from Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan | |||
Vehicle Identification for Logistics (7 types) | |||
Invoice and Receipt Recognition (19 types) | |||
Business Qualification Recognition (11 types) | |||
Class-II Medical Device Operation Filing Certificate Recognition | |||
Mixed Document Recognition (1 type) | |||
Note:
The "General Text Recognition (High-accuracy Edition)" capability is the same as the existing "Full Text Recognition (High-accuracy Edition)" but offers more configuration items than the original API.
The "General Text Recognition (Basic Edition)" capability is the same as the existing "General Text Recognition" but offers more configuration items than the original API.
Benefits
Compatible with multiple data types
You can use a single API to recognize various data types across multiple scenarios. This eliminates the need to integrate multiple APIs and reduces integration costs.
Clear billing
Unified OCR supports pay-as-you-go billing and shared resource plans. Multiple capabilities can consume from the same resource plan, which simplifies purchasing.
High real-time performance
The service runs on Alibaba Cloud's self-built Elastic Algorithm Service (EAS) online clusters. Continuous optimization of inference technology provides a low-latency service with elastic scaling.
Stable service
The service scales elastically based on call volume to ensure high extensibility. Continuous algorithm iterations and optimizations do not affect service stability for customers.
Scenarios
Image content moderation
You can use general-purpose APIs to recognize content in various scenarios for content moderation. This lets you detect non-compliant behavior promptly and significantly reduce manual labor costs. This service is widely used in e-commerce content administration scenarios.
Logistics, transportation, and automotive
This service is useful in scenarios such as used car transactions, smart parking, logistics, courier stations, and car insurance. The service provides recognition and verification for personal identities, vehicle information, and courier details. It supports text recognition for vehicle licenses, driver's licenses, license plates, VINs, e-waybills, ID cards, and vehicle inspection certificates.
Finance, banking, and insurance
You can use artificial intelligence recognition services for scenarios such as remote account opening, identity verification, information entry, contract and policy digitization, and bank statement or financial report data entry. This greatly reduces manual labor costs. The service supports text recognition for ID cards, passports, travel permits, bank cards, official seals, and tables.
Government and healthcare
This service is useful in scenarios such as financial reimbursement, paper-to-digital conversion of documents, volumes, and contracts, medical billing, pharmacy management, and resume or paper scanning and editing. The service converts non-text formats, such as images and scans, into editable text. It supports text recognition for VAT invoices, invoice verification, various receipts and vouchers, full text (high-accuracy), handwriting, and tables.
Retail, internet, and e-commerce
This service provides text recognition from images for scenarios such as content administration of posters, flyers, and product pages, qualification verification for merchant onboarding, and business opportunity or brand mining. The service supports recognition capabilities for e-commerce images, business licenses, real estate certificates, bank account opening permits, tables, high-accuracy text, and general text.
Contact us
If you have any questions or feedback, or if you want to communicate directly with our engineers, contact us.
You can reach us in the following ways:
Join our official DingTalk group: 35208328
Email our business contact at ocr_support@list.alibaba-inc.com and include your contact information.