1 | initial version |
Maybe instead of trying to go the OCR route, you could build a training model on the individual digits or pairs of digits? Basically, I'm thinking of training it to recognize 18__, 19__, 20__, and then __[0-9]_ and ___[0-9]. It would also be useful to determine if you could have the trained model consider the nearest curve edge as part of the recognized object. In your penny, it would recognize 19__ ) and then recognize the tens 2 and the ones 0 separately.
Part of the reason I'm thinking this might be an easier approach is because I think a sufficiently trained model can recognize an object regardless of orientation.