Specification of ETL-1

OCR Sheet

• Sheet: B5, 90kg per 1000 sheets
• Dropout color: No.26 Violet 50% Screen（DNP）
• Frame size: 5mm x 7mm
• Pitch: 7.62mm x 12.7mm
• Number of frames: 10 x 12 = 120

Characters

• Numeric: 10 (0-9)
• Capital Roman alphabet: 26 (A-Z)
• Special: 12 (\+-*/=()・,?’)
• Katakana: 51 (ア-ン)
• Total: 99

Data Collection

• Instructions: 手書文字読取用紙記入上のお願い
• No templates for numerals and alphabets
• Templates given for special characters and Katakana
• 1445 writers of 7 kinds of job

Scanning System

• Scanner: Flying Spot Scanner (FSS) with a Flying Spot Cathode Ray Tube 5CNP16 and a Photomultiplier Tube 7696
• Interval: 0.133mm x 0.133mm
• Spot size: 0.1333mm
• Intensity levels: 16 (4bit)
• Number of pixels: 72 x 76, cut out to 64 x 63

Compiling

• Place: Electrotechnical Laboratory (ETL)
• Joint work of ETL and Fujitsu for design of OCR sheet and scanning system
• Computer : TOSBAC-3400/41
• Software: FSSTOMT
• Date of Collection: Sept. 1973
• Date of Scanning: Sept. 1973-Mar. 1974
• Quality evaluation by human
• 141319 samples in total

Format

• M-Type Data Format (ETL1, ETL6, ETL7)
• Fixed Record Length without Control Words
• Logical record length is 2052 bytes (1byte = 8bits)
• Big endian
• Sample Script

Contents

Contents of files:

Filename	Categories	# Categories	Sheets	# Sheets	# Records
ETL1C-01	01234567	8	1001-2960	1445	11560
ETL1C-02	89ABCDEF	8	1001-2960	1445	11560
ETL1C-03	GHIJKLMN	8	1001-2960	1445	11560
ETL1C-04	OPQRSTUV	8	1001-2960	1445	11560
ETL1C-05	WXYZ\+-*	8	1001-2960	1445	11560
ETL1C-06	/=()・,?’	8	1001-2960	1445	11560
ETL1C-07	アイウエオカキク	8	1001-2960	1411	11288
ETL1C-08	ケコサシスセソタ	8	1001-2960	1411	11288
ETL1C-09	チツテトナニヌネ	8	1001-2960	1411	11287 note: ナ(NA) on Sheet 2672 is missing
ETL1C-10	ノハヒフヘホマミ	8	1001-2960	1411	11288
ETL1C-11	ムメモヤイユエヨ	8	1001-2960	1411	11288
ETL1C-12	ラリルレロワヰウ	8	1001-2960	1411	11287 note: リ(RI) on Sheet 2708 is missing
ETL1C-13	ヱヲン	3	1001-2960	1411	4233

List of available sheets:

1001-1026 1028-1149 1151-1243 1301-1306 1308-1316 1318-1355 1357 1360-1391 1393-1436 1438-1453 1455-1459 1461-1491 1501-1525 1527-1658 1660-1663 1665 1667-1695 1701-1766 1801-1837 1839-1884 2001-2019 2021-2025 2027-2153 2201-2391 2501-2696 2701-2744 2801-2802 *2803-2812 2813 *2814 2815-2817 *2818-2840 2901-2960 *: Katakana characters are missing

Samples

First ten samples (0: white, 15: black):