The ShowBitmap Class

The ShowBitmap class displays the selected region and asks the user if they want to convert it to text. If they answer yes, a MODI object is instantiated and used to do the conversion. A window appears with the converted text.

// This Bitmap object stores the
//   selected bitmap.
public Bitmap m_objBitmap;

// This just draws the bitmap in the window.
private void OnPaint(object sender, PaintEventArgs e)
{
     e.Graphics.DrawImage(m_objBitmap, 0, 0);
}

// We come here when the dialog has first appeared.
private void timer1_Tick(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
     // Turn the timer off so we don't
     //   do this multiple times.
     timer1.Enabled = false;

     // Ask user if this is what they want to do.
     if (MessageBox.Show("Convert this to text?",
          "Convert?", MessageBoxButtons.OKCancel) == DialogResult.OK)
     {
          // Create a temp file name.
          string strFileName = "temp" + DateTime.Now.Millisecond +
               ".tif";
          try
          {
               // Save the bitmap object to a tiff file.
               m_objBitmap.Save(strFileName, ImageFormat.Tiff);

               // Instantiate the MODI.Document object
               MODI.Document md = new MODI.Document();
               // The Create method grabs the picture from
               //   disk snd prepares for OCR.
               md.Create(strFileName);
               // Do the OCR.
               md.OCR(MODI.MiLANGUAGES.miLANG_ENGLISH, true, true);

               // This string will contain the text.
               string strText = String.Empty;

               // Get the first (and only image)
               MODI.Image image = (MODI.Image)md.Images[0];
               // Get the layout.
               MODI.Layout layout = image.Layout;

               // Loop through the words.
               for (int j = 0; j < layout.Words.Count; j++)
               {
                    // Get this word.
                    MODI.Word word = (MODI.Word)layout.Words[j];
                    // Add a blank space to separate words.
                    if (strText.Length > 0)
                    {
                         strText += " ";
                    }
                    // Add the word.
                    strText += word.Text;
               }
               // Close the MODI.Document object.
               md.Close(false);
               // Create the dialog that displays
               //   the OCRed text.
               ShowText st = new ShowText();
               // The the dialog's text.
               st.m_strOCRText = strText;
               // Show the dialog.
               st.ShowDialog();
          }
          catch (Exception ex)
          {
               MessageBox.Show(ex.Message.ToString());
          }
          try
          {
               // Delete the temp file.
               File.Delete(strFileName);
          }
          catch { }
     }
     // Close this dialog.
     Close();
}

The complete project can be downloaded here.

Conclusion

While there is a considerable amount of code to this program, the OCR part of it is pretty short. It's really easy to do OCR with the MODI component. Give it a try, or download the demo program and experiment.