Apparatus and method for capturing a document

• US 7,346,215 B2
• Filed: 12/31/2001
• Issued: 03/18/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 12/31/2001
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Intellectual Ventures I LLC (Intellectual Ventures LLC)
• Original Assignee: Transpacific IP Group Limited
• Inventors: Shih, Chen-Hsiang, Huang, Yin-Chun
• Primary Examiner(s): Lamb; Twyler
• Assistant Examiner(s): HANG, VU B
• Application Number:
  US10/029,846
• Publication Number:
  US 20030123113A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,269 Days
• Field of Search: 358/1.13, 358/448, 358/453, 358/539, 382/232, 382/235, 382/244
• US Class Current: 382/232
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 1/41 Bandwidth or redundancy reduction by scanning H04N1/17 ; methods or arrangements for coding, decoding, compressing or decompressing digital video signals H04N19/00

Abstract

An apparatus for capturing a document with a plurality of compression models comprises an image-processing system and an image-capturing system. The image-processing system is for accepting a request of setting the compression models for the document and processing the data of the document according to the compression models, wherein the request is from an exterior electric device connected to the apparatus. The image-capturing system is for capturing the data of the document, and is connected to the image-processing system and comprises multitudes of optic devices. The method for capturing the document with these compression models comprises accepting a request of setting the compression models for the document; capturing the data of the document; and processing the data of the document with these compression models.

Claims

1. An apparatus comprising:

an image-processing component adapted to generate data to display a preliminary scanned image of a document, and further adapted to receive a selection of a scanning zone of the preliminary scanned image, wherein the scanning zone comprises less than the entire preliminary scanned image, and further adapted to receive a selection of at least one sub-zone of the scanning zone and a selection of one of a plurality of compression models for the at least one sub-zone, wherein selection of a sub-zone comprises designation of an arbitrary area of the scanning zone, and wherein the selected compression model defines at least one compression ratio; and

an image-capturing component adapted to scan said document in accordance with the received selection of a scanning zone, and further adapted to process a scanned image in accordance with the received selection of at least one sub-zone and received selection of one of a plurality of compression models.

2. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein said image-processing component is further adapted to receive a selection of at least one sub-zone based at least in part on a request from an exterior device.

3. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein said apparatus comprises a scanner.

4. The apparatus of claim 3, wherein said compression model defines differing compression configurations for at least two portions of the image.

5. A system comprising:

a display interface adapted to display a preliminary scanned document image;

a processing device for accepting a scanning zone selection, wherein the scanning zone comprises less than the entire document image, and further adapted to accept a selection of at least one sub-zone of the scanning zone selection, wherein the selection of a sub-zone comprises designation of an arbitrary area of the scanning zone, and wherein selection of a sub-zone further comprises designation of a compression setting for the sub-zone, wherein the compression setting comprises-one or more compression ratios for the sub-zone; and

a scanning device coupled to said processing device, said scanning device adapted to capture a document image in accordance with the received selection of a scanning zone, and further adapted to provide the captured document image to the processing device for processing in accordance with the received selection of a sub-zone.

6. The system of claim 5, wherein said scanning system comprises a plurality of photo sensors.

7. The system of claim 5, wherein said processing is further configured to output said captured document image to an external device.

8. A method comprising:

pre-scanning an object to obtain a preliminary scanned image including a scanning zone;

providing scanning zone data to a computing system adapted to perform a chrominance and luminance analysis of at least a portion of the scanning zone; and

displaying a plurality of user-selectable sub-zones each having a plurality of user-selectable compression ratios, wherein the sub-zones and compression ratios are determined based at least in part on chrominance and luminance date provided by the computing system.

9. The method of claim 8, further comprising receiving user selection of a user-selectable sub-zones by use of an editing tool.

10. The method of claim 8, wherein said pre-scanning is implemented by a plurality of optic devices.

11. The method of claim 8, and further comprising displaying said plurality of user-selectable sub-zones on a display device.

12. The method of claim 8, wherein said plurality of compression ratios comprise lossy and lossless compression ratios.

13. An apparatus, comprising:

means for providing a preliminary scanned image of a document;

means for selecting a scanning zone of the document based on the preliminary scanned image, wherein the scanning zone comprises less than the entire document;

means for selecting at least one sub-zone of the scanning zone, wherein means for selecting at least one subzone comprises means for designation of an arbitrary area of the scanning zone, and wherein means for selecting a sub-zone further comprises designation of at least one compression ratio for the sub-zone; and

means for scanning the document in accordance with the selected scanning zone and selected at least one sub-zone.

14. The apparatus of claim 13, further comprising means for displaying said preliminary scanned image.

15. The apparatus of claim 14, wherein means for selecting a scanning zone comprises means for selecting a region of the preliminary scanned image from said means for displaying said preliminary scanned image.

16. The apparatus of claim 13, further comprising means for providing said scanned document to an external device.

17. The apparatus of claim 13, wherein means for providing a preliminary scanned image comprises means for displaying one or more user-selectable scan zones.

18. The apparatus of claim 13, wherein means for selecting at least one sub-zone comprises means for selecting a combination of lossy and lossless compression ratios for the at least one sub-zone.