Assembly comprising a pocket 3-D scanner
First Claim
Patent Images
1. An assembly comprising:
- (1) a laser for producing an optical beam that can be modulated so as to enable time-of-flight ranging;
(2) a subrange scanner positioned so that it can deviate the path of the optical beam; and
(3) an interferometer, configured so that when it receives at least a portion of the optical beam from the subrange scanner, it can subdivide it to produce transmit and local oscillator beams, and combine the local oscillator beam with at least a portion of an appropriately directed received beam, if present, to produce a combined beam.
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Abstract
An assembly comprising a 3-D scanner and suitable for capturing at least one of objects, or textures, or documents. The assembly preferably can be developed as a pocket page scanner having dimensions approximately the size of a chalkboard eraser. The assembly preferably utilizes an alignment-insensitive diode laser interferometer. In operation, the assembly enables a user to scan any page-sized area in e.g., a half of second, store a hundred or so of them, then play them back into a PC infrared port for OCR, printing, archival storage, or further processing.
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Citations
28 Claims
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1. An assembly comprising:
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(1) a laser for producing an optical beam that can be modulated so as to enable time-of-flight ranging; (2) a subrange scanner positioned so that it can deviate the path of the optical beam; and (3) an interferometer, configured so that when it receives at least a portion of the optical beam from the subrange scanner, it can subdivide it to produce transmit and local oscillator beams, and combine the local oscillator beam with at least a portion of an appropriately directed received beam, if present, to produce a combined beam.
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2. An assembly comprising:
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(1) a laser for producing an optical beam that can be modulated so as to enable time-of-flight ranging; (2) an interferometer, configured so that when it receives at least a portion of the optical beam from the laser, it can subdivide it to produce transmit and local oscillator beams, and combine the local oscillator beam with at least a portion of an appropriately directed received beam, if present, to produce a combined beam; (3) a scanner, that can deflect at least a portion of the transmit beam between set angular limits; (4) an optical detector, configured so as to intercept at least a portion of the combined beam and produce an electrical signal containing range or beam strength information; and (5) a subrange scanner which deviates the path of the transmit beam. - View Dependent Claims (3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8)
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9. An assembly comprising:
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(1) a laser for producing an optical beam that can be modulated so as to enable time-of-flight ranging; (2) an interferometer, configured so that when it receives at least a portion of the optical beam from the laser, it can subdivide it to produce transmit and local oscillator beams, and combine the local oscillator beam with at least a portion of an appropriately directed received beam, if present, for producing a combined beam; (3) a scanner that can deflect at least a portion of the transmit beam between set angular limits; (4) an optical detector, configured so that if a combined beam is present, it can intercept at least a portion of the combined beam, and produce an electrical signal containing range or beam strength information; and (5) a signal processor that can receive the electrical signal and can produce outputs corresponding to combined beam strength and a range between the assembly and an object surface; (6) a subrange scanner for deviating the path of the transmit beam. - View Dependent Claims (10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28)
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Specification