Document imaging system
First Claim
1. An image capture system, comprising:
- an electronic camera with an electronic detector and a lens with a field of view for imaging on the detector a portion of a document;
an actuator for moving the camera field of view over a document support surface, the camera and the actuator co-operating so that a plurality of overlapping image tiles of a document can be captured at different locations over the support surface, each image tile having an array of tile data points and being subject to some expected perspective and/or camera distortion relative to the support surface; and
a processor by which the plurality of image tiles may be joined into a composite image of the document;
characterised in that;
for each image tile the camera field of view relative to the support surface and the degree of overlap between neighbouring image tiles are predetermined;
the processor includes a memory which stores transform data for each image tile, the transform data relating both to the expected distortion and to the predetermined overlap between image tiles; and
the processor is adapted to use the transform data to generate from the tile data points a corrected array of tile data points with said distortion corrected and with the corrected image tiles correctly overlapped with respect to neighbouring corrected image tiles to form a composite image of the document.
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Accused Products
Abstract
The present invention relates to the use of an image capture system having an electronic camera for platenless document imaging. The system comprises: an electronic camera with an electronic detector and a lens with a field of view for imaging on the detector a portion of a document; a support by which the camera can be positioned to view the document; an actuator for moving the camera field of view so that a plurality of overlapping image tiles of a document can be captured at predetermined different locations over the support surface, each image tile having an array of tile data points and being subject to some expected perspective and/or camera distortion relative to the support surface; and a processor by which the plurality of image tiles may be joined into a composite image of the document. The processor includes a memory which stores transform data for each image tile, the transform data relating both to the expected distortion and to the predetermined overlap between image tiles. The processor is adapted to use the transform data to generate from the tile data points a corrected array of tile data points with the distortion corrected and with the corrected image tiles correctly overlapped to form a composite image of the document.
19 Citations
25 Claims
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1. An image capture system, comprising:
- an electronic camera with an electronic detector and a lens with a field of view for imaging on the detector a portion of a document;
an actuator for moving the camera field of view over a document support surface, the camera and the actuator co-operating so that a plurality of overlapping image tiles of a document can be captured at different locations over the support surface, each image tile having an array of tile data points and being subject to some expected perspective and/or camera distortion relative to the support surface; and
a processor by which the plurality of image tiles may be joined into a composite image of the document;
characterised in that;
for each image tile the camera field of view relative to the support surface and the degree of overlap between neighbouring image tiles are predetermined;
the processor includes a memory which stores transform data for each image tile, the transform data relating both to the expected distortion and to the predetermined overlap between image tiles; and
the processor is adapted to use the transform data to generate from the tile data points a corrected array of tile data points with said distortion corrected and with the corrected image tiles correctly overlapped with respect to neighbouring corrected image tiles to form a composite image of the document. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25)
- an electronic camera with an electronic detector and a lens with a field of view for imaging on the detector a portion of a document;
Specification