Tokyo, Japan – January 16th, 2024, – Morpho AI Solutions, Inc. (hereinafter “Morpho AIS”), which is responsible for the commercialization of AI within the Morpho Group, is proud to announce the start of a literature research project in conjunction with the National Institute of Technology, Nagano College (KOSEN) using FROG AI-OCR, the AI-OCR software for modern books.
Since July 1, 2022, Morpho AIS has been providing FROG AI-OCR as a commercial software. Morpho AIS supplies it to meet the needs of digital archiving projects and compliance with reading-related barrier-free laws, backed by the Digital Garden City Initiative that is being implemented by university libraries, regional libraries, and local governments.
In this research, natural language processing research was performed on the corpus of modern Japanese literature using FROG AI-OCR. In recent years, academic institutions, both in Japan and overseas, have discussed the new potential for using digital technologies in modern literature research. One approach is morphological analysis (breaking up sentences into their smallest units of meaning and analyzing them based on meaning, part of speech, etc.). Some of the advantages of this type of analysis are that it improves the accuracy with which text is understood and the objectivity of explanations. However, existing OCR software has been unable to recognize text in books that use old character forms, old kana orthography, or special layouts. Instead, these books have had to be converted to text by hand, which takes a prodigious amount of time.
This research is using FROG AI-OCR, which can handle old character forms, old kana orthography, and special layouts, to improve the efficiency of modern literature morphological analysis, in an attempt to explore new horizons of literature research.
In the future, Morpho AIS plans to provide a richer range of support programs (such as assistance with applications for grants-in-aid) that can assist academic institutions to perform research using FROG AI-OCR.
In the past, the primary method of analysis used in literature research has been close reading. I believe that using computer-based natural language processing to analyze large amounts of text has the potential to take literature research in new directions. However, currently, creating the text to use in natural language processing is a struggle. This is because magazine data and data from the literature corpus contain old character forms and glosses for the readings of characters, which conventional OCR cannot process. FROG AI-OCR is capable of reading data like that with quite a high level of accuracy, so it’s a real life-saver.
Existing OCR products have struggled to distinguish the main text from reading glosses, which are often used in modern literature. FROG AI-OCR, on the other hand, can distinguish between the two and process them without confusion.
https://frog-ai-ocr.morphoai.com/
A free trial is also available from this page.
4/28/2022
Morpho AI Solutions Developed OCR Program for National Diet Library by Using Latest AI Technologies
https://www.morphoinc.com/en/news/20220428-epr-mais_ndl
5/9/2022
Morpho AI Solutions Develops OCR for the National Diet Library to Aid the Visually Impaired
https://www.morphoinc.com/en/news/20220509-epr-mais_ndl
5/12/2023
Morpho AI Solutions Announces a Researcher Package Plan for FROG AI-OCR, AI-OCR Software for Modern Books
https://www.morphoinc.com/en/news/20241205-epr-mais_frog_aiocr
FROG AI-OCR is used as the core engine of the National Diet Library’s NDLOCR (https://github.com/ndl-lab/ndlocr_cli).
Morpho AI Solutions is a company engaged in the commercialization of AI (Artificial Intelligence). It promotes the introduction and actual operation of cutting-edge AI technologies, including AI-OCR, in the areas of social infrastructure such as government, electric power, transportation, and manufacturing.
For more information, visit https://www.morphoai.com/ or contact contact@morphoai.com.
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