21. A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium having computer-readable instructions stored therein, the instructions being executable by a processor of a computing system, wherein the instructions comprise: instructions to receive the image containing characters to be recognized; instructions to analyze the received image to detect a region of interest of the received image; instructions to compare, 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; instructions to generate a first series of hypotheses based at least on the determined coincidence values; instructions to compare 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; instructions to generate a second series of hypotheses based at least on the determined second coincidence values; and instructions to recognize the characters in the received image based at least on the first series of hypotheses and the second series of hypotheses.
21. A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium having computer-readable instructions stored therein, the instructions being executable by a processor of a computing system, wherein the instructions comprise: instructions to receive the image containing characters to be recognized; instructions to analyze the received image to detect a region of interest of the received image; instructions to compare, 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; instructions to generate a first series of hypotheses based at least on the determined coincidence values; instructions to compare 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; instructions to generate a second series of hypotheses based at least on the determined second coincidence values; and instructions to recognize the characters in the received image based at least on the first series of hypotheses and the second series of hypotheses. 22. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 21 , further comprising instructions to detect an area of the region of interest above a centerline, referred to as the first portion of the received image, and to detect an area of the region of interest below the centerline, referred to as the second portion of the received image.