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On the Relations tab of an element’s Properties dialog box, you can specify a search area relative to other elements.
Screenshot of the Relations tab of an element's Properties dialog box in ABBYY FlexiLayout Studio, showing the Relations table and the Add, Edit, Duplicate, and Remove buttons.
The Properties dialog box appears when you create a new element.
  • To add a new relation, click Add. The Add New Relation… dialog box opens.
  • To edit an existing relation, click Edit.
  • To duplicate a selected relation, click Duplicate.
  • To remove a selected relation, click Remove.
To open the Properties dialog box for an existing element, do one of the following:
  • Right-click the element in the tree of elements and select Properties… on the shortcut menu.
  • Double-click the element in the tree of elements.
In the Properties dialog box, click the Relations tab.

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Specify the boundaries of a search area relative to another element

In the Add New Relation or Edit Relation dialog box, specify the relation parameters:
1

Select the relation type

In the Type field, select Left of, Right of, Above, or Below.
2

Select a reference element

Click the Browse button button next to the Reference element field, and then select the element relative to which you define the search-area boundaries. For instructions on defining a search area relative to subelements of a repeating group, see Use instances of a Repeating Group as reference, excluded, or source elements.
3

Select the reference boundary

In the Reference boundary field, select the boundary of the element’s region relative to which you define the boundary of the search area.
4

Set the offset

In the Offset field, set the offset value for the boundary of the search area.
5

Add or save the relation

Click Add Relation to add a new relation, or Save Changes to save the relation after editing. All relations are displayed in the Relations table.
You can also select the relation type, the element boundary, and the offset type (negative, zero, or positive) using pictures in the Choose relation parameters by picture dialog box. On the Left of, Right of, Above, and Below tabs, you can see the relative position of the element and the search area, and how the search area changes depending on the selected boundary and offset types. To open the Choose relation parameters by picture dialog box, click Choose… in the Add New Relation or Edit Relation dialog box.
Screenshot of the Choose relation parameters by picture dialog box on the Above tab, showing pictures of how the search area relates to the reference element for Top, Bottom, and Center boundaries with negative, zero, and positive offsets, plus a legend.
The elements used as reference elements and the elements excluded from the search area must be located higher up the tree of elements than the element for which the constraint is being specified.
ABBYY FlexiLayout Studio lets you keep several Properties dialog boxes open at the same time. To copy a property that defines the boundary of a search area, select it in the Relations table and drag it into the Properties dialog box of another element. You can copy the constraints specified on the Advanced tab in the same way.

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Visualization of relations

When you edit relation properties or select a relation in the Relations table, the relation appears in the Image window. The reference element is enclosed in a thick frame, and the search area is highlighted with a green background.
Screenshot of a relation visualized in the Image window next to the Relations tab of the Properties dialog box, where the reference element is enclosed in a thick frame and the search area is highlighted with a green background.
When you edit the boundary type and offset value, the search area in the Image window changes accordingly. In Reference layout mode, you can also drag the offset boundary with the mouse directly in the Image window to change the offset value. If Matched layout is selected, the relation is displayed in read-only mode, and offsets cannot be edited in the Image window. When you select several relations, the intersection of the selected relations is displayed. The intersection area is highlighted with a green background, and the areas outside the intersection borders are highlighted in blue.
Screenshot of several relations visualized in the Image window next to the Relations tab of the Properties dialog box, where the intersection of the selected relations is highlighted with a green background and the areas outside it are highlighted blue.

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Select the element closest to a certain object

The Nearest property tells the program that, all other things being equal, it must look for a hypothesis located closest to a certain element or point on the image. Specify the closest element, point, or coordinate axis in the Nearest property of the element. To instruct the program to select the element closest to a certain object on the image, select the Nearest option, and then choose the object from the To drop-down list. The option you select determines what else you specify: The Minimum quality parameter specifies the minimum quality of the element hypothesis. By default, its value is equal to the quality of the null hypothesis.
The element closest to the given element is selected based on the shortest distance between element centers.
For more information, see Search for elements with Nearest and FuzzyQuality.