What is OMR?

ICR, OCR, and OMR

A Comparison of Technologies 

ICR, OCR, and OMR are all methods of reducing the amount of data entry in forms processing environments. ICR and OCR are recognition engines used with imaging. OMR is a data collection technology that does not require a recognition engine; it is used when accuracy is most critical. 

ICR - Intelligent Character Recognition 

ICR technology gives scanning and imaging systems the ability to turn images of hand-printed characters (not cursive) into machine-readable characters. Images of hand-printed characters are extracted from a bitmap of the scanned image. Forms can be scanned through an imaging scanner, faxed, or computer generated to produce the bitmap. There are several ICR recognition engines on the market. 

OCR - Optical Character Recognition 

OCR technology gives scanning and imaging systems the ability to turn images of machine-printed characters into machine-readable characters. Images of machine-printed characters are extracted from a bitmap of the scanned image. Forms can be scanned through an imaging scanner, faxed, or computer generated to produce the bitmap. There are several OCR recognition engines on the market; Pearson Canada Solutions offers the Caere Wordscan OCR engine. 

OMR - Optical Mark Read 

OMR technology detects the absence or presence of a mark, but not the shape of the mark. Pearson Canada Solutions software interprets the output from the scanner and translates it into the desired ASCII output. Forms are scanned through an OMR scanner. The forms contain small circles, referred to as 'bubbles,' that are filled in by the respondent. OMR cannot recognize hand-printed or machine-printed characters; the scanner does not create an image of the form. 

A production imaging scanner can scan between 1,200 and 7,500 forms per hour. It is not, however, the scanning speed that determines the throughput of an application. Other factors—such as number of characters per page, number of different document types, and legibility of handwriting—do affect the throughput. A production imaging scanner is significantly more expensive than an OMR scanner. As the scanning volume increases, a network of workstations and servers is required to process the activity. An application is rarely limited by the scanning speed of the scanner; rather, it is limited by the processing power on the network. 

An OMR scanner can maintain a throughput of 2,000 to 10,000 forms per hour. This activity can be controlled and processed by a single workstation, which can handle any volume the scanner can generate. Increasing the throughput simply requires upgrading the scanner. ICR and OCR software cannot be used with an OMR scanner.