What is OCR Data Extraction?
Blog post from Roboflow
Optical Character Recognition (OCR) is a technology in computer vision and AI used to convert text from images into editable, searchable formats, being integral in extracting textual information for real-world applications. This blog explores the use of Vision Language Models (VLMs), which enhance traditional OCR by integrating visual data with linguistic understanding, improving text extraction accuracy and context interpretation. Notable models like Microsoft's Florence-2, Google's PaliGemma 2, Gemini, and OpenAI's GPT-4o are discussed for their advanced capabilities in handling complex OCR tasks, such as recognizing context-specific abbreviations and reconstructing table structures. Traditional OCR tools like Tesseract and EasyOCR are also highlighted for their multilingual support and ease of integration. The blog further illustrates how to build OCR applications using these models, employing platforms like Gradio for user interface development, to automate data extraction from product labels, thereby optimizing data entry processes in industries like retail and logistics.