Answers.Body: <p>This is not meant to be a direct answer, as OCR is not an area I have experience in, but I want to present a deeper problem, that of mathematical notation.</p>
  
  <p>Mathematics has "exploded" in the last few centuries, and notation is not standard across various sub-fields.  Check out this question on <a href="https://hsm.stackexchange.com/questions/5962/notational-change-with-integrals/5968#5968">notational change with integrals</a>. In some cases, individual sub-fields have alternate forms of notation.</p>
  
  <p>My suspicion is that this task will be enormously difficult without a great deal of human guidance, so I'd point you towards AI methods that utilize "human-assisted machine learning". </p>
  
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Answers.CreationDate: 2017-06-29T19:02:30.700Z
Answers.Text: Well, since it is kind of my first 'real' AI project, I only want it to recognize and solve some basic equations like polynomials of degree 1-3, do you think tesseract can do this task?
Answers.UserDisplayName: Philippe
Answers.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 3.0
Answers.CreationDate: 2017-06-29T19:08:52.247Z
Answers.Text: I can't really give you advice on that b/c my own AI endeavors are quite distinct.  From what I've read, Tesseract seems to have a good reputation as a "bare bones" engine and it's free.  For more specific advice, you'll need to wait until someone with direct experience weighs in. But it never hurts to just jump in if you're passionate.  You'll probably fail a number of times before you succeed, and you'll learn from every step.
Answers.UserDisplayName: DukeZhou
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Answers.CreationDate: 2017-06-29T18:56:31.053Z
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Answers.UserDisplayName: DukeZhou
Body: <p>Alright, I want to write a mobile app that lets you take a photo of your equation, detects the equation, transforms it from pixels to text and then solves if it's possible.</p>
  
  <p>Right now, I am doing the part where I receive a photo (2D array of pixels) and what to output a resized part of this photo (the part has a rectangular shape) that just contains the equation and some pixels around it.</p>
  
  <p>Basically, I need a model that takes a 2D array and returns a resized version of it.</p>
  
  <p>Since I am new to AI, I don't know what techniques have been successful in optical character recognition.</p>
  
  <p>Any suggestions?</p>
  
Comments.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 3.0
Comments.CreationDate: 2017-06-29T18:31:00.997Z
Comments.Text: I suspect you were down voted because the question is so broad, in the sense that you "don't know what to use and how to use it".  You might try to rephrase to ask something like "What techniques have been successful in [optical character recognition](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optical_character_recognition)" and break out advice on where to learn about those techniques into a separate question.  Welcome to AI!
Comments.UserDisplayName: DukeZhou
Comments.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 3.0
Comments.CreationDate: 2017-06-29T18:45:06.917Z
Comments.Text: @DukeZhou Thanks a lot, changed my question!
Comments.UserDisplayName: Philippe
Tags: <neural-networks><machine-learning>
Title: Successful methods for optical character recognition?
UserDisplayName: Philippe
ThreadText: # Successful methods for optical character recognition?
  
  (Asked by: username_0 on 2017-06-29)
  
  Alright, I want to write a mobile app that lets you take a photo of your equation, detects the equation, transforms it from pixels to text and then solves if it's possible.
  
  Right now, I am doing the part where I receive a photo (2D array of pixels) and what to output a resized part of this photo (the part has a rectangular shape) that just contains the equation and some pixels around it.
  
  Basically, I need a model that takes a 2D array and returns a resized version of it.
  
  Since I am new to AI, I don't know what techniques have been successful in optical character recognition.
  
  Any suggestions?
  
  **Tags:** neural-networks, machine-learning
  > **Comments:**
  > **username_1**: I suspect you were down voted because the question is so broad, in the sense that you "don't know what to use and how to use it".  You might try to rephrase to ask something like "What techniques have been successful in [optical character recognition](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optical_character_recognition)" and break out advice on where to learn about those techniques into a separate question.  Welcome to AI!  
  > **username_0**: @DukeZhou Thanks a lot, changed my question!  
  
  ---
  
  ## 1 answers
  
  ### Answer by username_1 on 2017-06-29. Score: 1
  
  This is not meant to be a direct answer, as OCR is not an area I have experience in, but I want to present a deeper problem, that of mathematical notation.
  
  Mathematics has "exploded" in the last few centuries, and notation is not standard across various sub-fields. Check out this question on [notational change with integrals](https://hsm.stackexchange.com/questions/5962/notational-change-with-integrals/5968#5968). In some cases, individual sub-fields have alternate forms of notation.
  
  My suspicion is that this task will be enormously difficult without a great deal of human guidance, so I'd point you towards AI methods that utilize "human-assisted machine learning".
  
  > **Comments:**
  > **username_0**: Well, since it is kind of my first 'real' AI project, I only want it to recognize and solve some basic equations like polynomials of degree 1-3, do you think tesseract can do this task?  
  > **username_1**: I can't really give you advice on that b/c my own AI endeavors are quite distinct.  From what I've read, Tesseract seems to have a good reputation as a "bare bones" engine and it's free.  For more specific advice, you'll need to wait until someone with direct experience weighs in. But it never hurts to just jump in if you're passionate.  You'll probably fail a number of times before you succeed, and you'll learn from every step.  
  
  ---
  
  