1. A method for identifying characters in an image, the method comprising: receiving, by a computing device, the image containing characters to be recognized; analyzing the received image to detect a region of interest of the received image; comparing, relative to the detected region of interest, a first portion of the received image to a set of patterns to determine a first coincidence value for each pattern in the set of patterns; generating a first series of hypotheses based at least on the determined first coincidence values; comparing a second portion of the received image to a set of selected patterns to determine a second coincidence value for each pattern in the set of selected patterns, wherein the set of selected patterns is selected based at least on the generated first series of hypotheses; generating a second series of hypotheses based at least on the determined second coincidence values; and recognizing the characters in the received image based at least on the first series of hypotheses and the second series of hypotheses.