Azure OCR [printed text] is not reading the receipt lines in the right order

Question

Application Goal: read the receipt image, extract the store/organization name along with the total amount paid. Feed it to web-form for auto-filling & submission.

Post Request - "https://*.cognitiveservices.azure.com/vision/v2.0/recognizeText?{params}

Get Request - https://*.cognitiveservices.azure.com/vision/v2.0/textOperations/{operationId}

however when I get the results back, sometimes it's confusing in line ordering (see below picture [similar results in JSON response])

This mixing is resulting in getting the total as $0.88

Similar situations are present for 2 out of 9 testing receipts.

Q: Why it's working for similar & different structured receipts but for some reason not consistent for all? Also, any ideas how to get around it?

Answer 1

I had a quick look to your case.

OCR Result

As you mentioned, the results are not ordered as you thought. I had a quick look to the bounding boxes values and I don't know how they are ordered. You could try to consolidate fields based on that, but there is a service that is already doing it for you.

Form Recognizer:

Using Form Recognizer and your image, I got the following results for your receipt.

As you can see below, the understandingResults contains the total with its value ("value": 9.11), the MerchantName ("Chick-fil-a") and other fields.

{
    "status": "Succeeded",
    "recognitionResults": [
        {
            "page": 1,
            "clockwiseOrientation": 0.17,
            "width": 404,
            "height": 1226,
            "unit": "pixel",
            "lines": [
                {
                    "boundingBox": [
                        108,
                        55,
                        297,
                        56,
                        296,
                        71,
                        107,
                        70
                    ],
                    "text": "Welcome to Chick-fil-a",
                    "words": [
                        {
                            "boundingBox": [
                                108,
                                56,
                                169,
                                56,
                                169,
                                71,
                                108,
                                71
                            ],
                            "text": "Welcome",
                            "confidence": "Low"
                        },
                        {
                            "boundingBox": [
                                177,
                                56,
                                194,
                                56,
                                194,
                                71,
                                177,
                                71
                            ],
                            "text": "to"
                        },
                        {
                            "boundingBox": [
                                201,
                                56,
                                296,
                                57,
                                296,
                                71,
                                201,
                                71
                            ],
                            "text": "Chick-fil-a"
                        }
                    ]
                },
...
OTHER LINES CUT FOR DISPLAY
...
            ]
        }
    ],
    "understandingResults": [
        {
            "pages": [
                1
            ],
            "fields": {
                "Subtotal": null,
                "Total": {
                    "valueType": "numberValue",
                    "value": 9.11,
                    "text": "$9.11",
                    "elements": [
                        {
                            "$ref": "#/recognitionResults/0/lines/32/words/0"
                        },
                        {
                            "$ref": "#/recognitionResults/0/lines/32/words/1"
                        }
                    ]
                },
                "Tax": {
                    "valueType": "numberValue",
                    "value": 0.88,
                    "text": "$0.88",
                    "elements": [
                        {
                            "$ref": "#/recognitionResults/0/lines/31/words/0"
                        },
                        {
                            "$ref": "#/recognitionResults/0/lines/31/words/1"
                        },
                        {
                            "$ref": "#/recognitionResults/0/lines/31/words/2"
                        }
                    ]
                },
                "MerchantAddress": null,
                "MerchantName": {
                    "valueType": "stringValue",
                    "value": "Chick-fil-a",
                    "text": "Chick-fil-a",
                    "elements": [
                        {
                            "$ref": "#/recognitionResults/0/lines/0/words/2"
                        }
                    ]
                },
                "MerchantPhoneNumber": {
                    "valueType": "stringValue",
                    "value": "+13092689500",
                    "text": "309-268-9500",
                    "elements": [
                        {
                            "$ref": "#/recognitionResults/0/lines/4/words/0"
                        }
                    ]
                },
                "TransactionDate": {
                    "valueType": "stringValue",
                    "value": "2019-06-21",
                    "text": "6/21/2019",
                    "elements": [
                        {
                            "$ref": "#/recognitionResults/0/lines/6/words/0"
                        }
                    ]
                },
                "TransactionTime": {
                    "valueType": "stringValue",
                    "value": "13:00:57",
                    "text": "1:00:57 PM",
                    "elements": [
                        {
                            "$ref": "#/recognitionResults/0/lines/6/words/1"
                        },
                        {
                            "$ref": "#/recognitionResults/0/lines/6/words/2"
                        }
                    ]
                }
            }
        }
    ]
}

More details on Form Recognizer: https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/services/cognitive-services/form-recognizer/