ChessOcr

This app uses the camera to recognize Chess Figures in books using optical character recognition. It saves each recognized figure in a pgn file, and also puts the most recent one in the clipboard as a FEN string. You can then invoke a chess program like DroidFish, or SCIDOnthego directly to analyze the position or do a data base search for games that contain this position. For best results the figure should take up at least half the camera view, and the book be reasonably flat (some warp is compensated for).

The simplest way to test this app is as follows:

1) Install ChessOcr app and SCIDOntheGo https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.scid.android
2) Download zip file http://www.kgrothapps.com/files/dbsmall-apr-6-13.zip then unzip and put these files in SCID directory.
3) Start SCIDOntheGo app and do file open database dbsmall-apr-6-13, and keep this database open.
4) Long press on the board, go to bottom of menu, and select "Retrieve position".
5) First time set selection of ChessOcr to be the permanent association.
6) Place diagram in middle of video, large as possible and press screen to start.
7) Recognized position is drawn on screen, press which colour is to move.
8) Resulting position is returned to SCIDOntheGO
9) Do "Search, Search current board, Ok" and then pgn for matching games will be retrieved.

You can use "Retrieve position" from the chess app DroidFish by doing long press on the board, going to the bottom of the menu, and then selecting "Retrieve Position".

Tags: chessocr iphone.