Digitization of Raster Drawings with Deep Learning

Framework outperforms OCR software in extracting data from mechanical drawings

JournalIndustry 4.0 Science
Issue Volume 40, 2024, Edition 6, Pages 10-17
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Abstract

Automatic extraction of Product Manufacturing Information (PMI) from mechanical CAD drawings is a prerequisite for manufacturing and production quality control. Because of the special style of CAD drawings and the limited availability of training and test data, digitizing CAD drawings in raster images remains a challenge for Optical Character Recognition (OCR) systems. This work presents a novel deep learning-based framework to address this problem, which localizes and recognizes Geometrical Dimensioning and Tolerancing (GD&T) and dimensions in CAD drawings. The framework is composed of a centralized localization module and several subsequent pipelines for individual classes of PMI. The performance of the localization module, the text recognition network and the individual pipelines is evaluated using real data sets. Their performance is compared with the performance of the OCR software Tesseract.

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Article

A new look into the depths of technical drawings: A deep learning framework reads CAD drawings more accurately than ever before, recognizing geometrical dimensioning and tolerancing, dimensions, and every other detail. What used to be tedious manual labor is now carried out by an AI that understands the special features of every line and label. This promising technology not only increases accuracy but also speeds up the processing of drawings considerably. The system thus opens up new avenues for precision in production.

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