[Bug] Egyptian ID National Number (14 digits) dropped and misread by EasyOCR

[mohieyelkiouty]

Description:

I am using EasyOCR to extract data from Egyptian ID cards. While names and addresses are mostly fine, the 14-digit National ID number is consistently failing.

The Problem:

• Digit Dropout: The OCR typically returns only 10 or 11 digits out of 14.
• Misinterpretation: Zeros (0) are often skipped or seen as whitespace. Digits like 1 and 8 are frequently swapped.
• Fragmentation: The gaps between number groups in the ID layout cause the reader to break the ID into multiple parts.

Pre-processing Steps Taken:

# 1. Image Enhancement
lab = cv2.cvtColor(img, cv2.COLOR_BGR2LAB)
l, a, b = cv2.split(lab)
l_sharpened = cv2.addWeighted(l, 1.5, cv2.GaussianBlur(l, (9,9), 10.0), -0.5, 0)
enhanced = cv2.detailEnhance(cv2.merge((l_sharpened, a, b)), sigma_s=10, sigma_r=0.15)

# 2. Binarization
_, thresh = cv2.threshold(cv2.bitwise_not(cv2.cvtColor(enhanced, cv2.COLOR_BGR2GRAY)), 135, 255, cv2.THRESH_BINARY)
cleaned = cv2.bitwise_not(cv2.morphologyEx(thresh, cv2.MORPH_OPEN, np.ones((2,2))))

OCR Attempt:

# Tested various combinations of these
reader.readtext(crop, allowlist='0123456789٠١٢٣٤٥٦٧٨٩', paragraph=False, mag_filter=True)

Expected Result: 28610271500813 (14 digits)
Actual Result: 18621527138 (11 digits, misread and missing zeros)

How can I force EasyOCR to recognize the full sequence including the zeros and small gaps?