Intelligent Systems Report € December € 1995 € Volume 12 € No. 12

Intelligent Applications

Document remittance processor

Caere's Model 1800 is a neural network-based document remittance processor. Designed for small- to medium-sized businesses with remittance processing needs of up to 10,000 documents/day, the Model 1800 provides a complete hardware solution for document processing that both scans remittance documents and prepares accompanying check payments for deposit - combined all in one small desktop unit.

The Model 1800 reads optical character recognition (OCR) information on remittance documents and provides means for encoding on-check journal tracking, endorsing, and sorting of accompanying check payments. The Model 1800 provides the capabilities to: read OCR and magnetic data on remittance documents, freeing the operator from manually entering information; encode; provide on-check journal tracking; endorse, and sort checks in up to 12 bins. It provides a read processing rate of up to 4,000 documents per hour and an encoding rate of up to 1,800 documents per hour. The Model 1800 utilizes feature extraction and neural network-based recognition technologies to achieve accuracy rates of over 99.99%. Price: $24,000.

Caere Corp., 100 Cooper Court, Los Gatos, CA 95030, (408) 395-7000, Fax: (408) 354-2743.

Neural OCR system

The Powervision machine vision system now includes Powervision OCR, a neural network-based optical character recognition (OCR) module. Designed for part identification and code inspection in electronics, automotive, packaging and pharmaceutical applications, Powervision OCR performs OCR on an image captured by a CCD camera. This means the system is able to read characters on a part and convert them to an ASCII string when it is not known which characters will appear.

Powervision OCR can identify a string of up to 45 unique characters or symbols at one time. Built-in fonts include uppercase letters, numbers and symbols for the fonts OCR A, OCR B, Semi, Helvetica, Futura and Times. Using a neural network-based training process, the system is font-independent - fonts can be trained to recognize new fonts or to improve performance. Characters can be read at a rate of up to 6,000 characters per minute. Pricing starts at $12,250.

Acuity Imaging Inc., 9 Townsend West, Nashua, NH 03063, (603) 598-8400, Fax: (603) 598-4684, e-mail: info@acut.com

Process control software

Aegis is a real-time software platform based on intelligent systems technologies such as neural networks, fuzzy logic, genetic algorithms and expert systems. Written in C++ and based on object-oriented methodologies, Aegis is used to develop specific process optimization solutions in CAD/CAM/CAE environments.

Aegis runs on a variety of platforms, including DOS, Windows, Windows NT and UNIX, and on a variety of systems from workstations to embedded PLC information processors. Aegis provides a library of communications drivers to various PLCs, databases and I/O cards.

Neural Applications Corp., Oakdale Research Park, 2600 Crosspark Road, Coralville, IA 52241-3212, (319) 626-5000, Fax: (319) 626-5001.

Intelligent e-mail

Top of Mind Help Desk for Windows 4.1 is an intelligent customer service application that now includes Cognitive Internet, extending the system's Cognitive E-Mail capability to include messaging via Internet mail. Cognitive Internet messaging capability allows users to import e-mail from any valid Internet mail account (direct or dial-up) into Top of Mind. The system automatically opens a case ticket for the message and begins to diagnose and resolve the problem. Messages may also be sent via the Internet, and will contain vital information from the case ticket, informing the user of the problem's resolution.

Top of Mind uses the Cognitive Processor, a problem diagnosis and resolution technology, to accumulate and distribute the collective knowledge of the help desk staff. This intelligent system, in effect, learns from the experience of its users. Top of Mind provides complete help desk functionality, including call logging/tracking, problem resolution, asset management, change management, reports, Query By Example, and customizable views.

The Molloy Group Inc., 90 East Halsey Road, Parsippany, NJ 07054, (201) 540-1212, Fax: (201) 292-9407.

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