Hand-held plastic optical fiber linear scanner for reading color images formed on a surface
First Claim
1. An optical scanner for scanning and reading a color image formed on a surface, comprising:
- a hand-held scanner head;
an optoelectronic module, separate from said scanner head, and located at a distance from said scanner head, for converting impinging light signals to electrical signals;
light source means, separate from said scanner head and located at a distance therefrom, for generating red, blue and green light beams; and
a bundle of individual plastic optical fibers extending from said scanner head to said optoelectronic module and to said light source means,first ends of said optical fibers being secured in said scanning head and arranged in a linear array for scanning the color image upon movement of said hand-held scanner head,opposite ends of said optical fibers being coupled to said optoelectronic module and to said light source means,whereby a light beam is transmitted from said light source means via a given fiber to said surface, is reflected from the image thereon, and is returned via said same given fiber to said module to produce electrical signals representative of the scanned image.
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Accused Products
Abstract
A hand-held optical scanner for reading color images formed on a document. The scanner head is all-optical and contains no electronics. Optical fiber bundles couple the scanner head to a remote opto-electronic module containing a linear or a 2D sensor array for converting optical signals, reflected from the document, to electrical signals for transmission to a computer display, etc. By using side coupling, the transmitted and reflected light for each pixel travels through the same optical fiber without the need for a beam splitter. The optical fibers are used for the functions of image scanning, position encoding, and signaling a computer which assigns each one of incoherently arranged optical fibers to one of the functions.
82 Citations
14 Claims
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1. An optical scanner for scanning and reading a color image formed on a surface, comprising:
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a hand-held scanner head; an optoelectronic module, separate from said scanner head, and located at a distance from said scanner head, for converting impinging light signals to electrical signals; light source means, separate from said scanner head and located at a distance therefrom, for generating red, blue and green light beams; and a bundle of individual plastic optical fibers extending from said scanner head to said optoelectronic module and to said light source means, first ends of said optical fibers being secured in said scanning head and arranged in a linear array for scanning the color image upon movement of said hand-held scanner head, opposite ends of said optical fibers being coupled to said optoelectronic module and to said light source means, whereby a light beam is transmitted from said light source means via a given fiber to said surface, is reflected from the image thereon, and is returned via said same given fiber to said module to produce electrical signals representative of the scanned image. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10)
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11. An all-optical hand-held scanner head for use in a color image scanning system including light detecting means for detecting image light signals reflected from the image when the image is irradiated with transmitted colored light signals, said scanner head comprising:
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an extended housing having a scanning surface; a bundle of elongated optical fibers mounted in said housing, and having respective optical fiber tips exposed at said scanning surface, each of said optical fibers having an optical side coupling for inputting the transmitted colored light signals; optical rotary encoder means, mounted on said housing, for reflecting coded light signals indicative of the displacement of said scanner head along said image; and manually operated optical fiber switch means, mounted in said housing, for reflecting function-defining light signals, a first set of said optical fiber tips being linearly disposed along the length of said scanning surface, and being dedicated to scanning the image by directing the transmitted colored light signals to said image and returning corresponding said reflecting image light signals via said bundle to the light detecting means, a second set of said optical fiber tips being dedicated to said rotary encoder means for directing the transmitted coded light signals to said rotary encoder means and returning the reflected coded light signals via said bundle to said light detecting means, and a third set of said optical fiber tips being dedicated to said optical fiber switch means for directing the transmitted colored light signals to said optical fiber switch means and returning the reflected function-defining light signals via said bundle to said light detecting means, wherein corresponding transmitted and reflected light signals travel in opposite directions in the same optical fiber. - View Dependent Claims (12, 13, 14)
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Specification