Facsimile and static presentation processing – Facsimile – Picture signal generator
Reexamination Certificate
2000-11-21
2004-10-26
Coles, Edward (Department: 2622)
Facsimile and static presentation processing
Facsimile
Picture signal generator
C358S474000, C358S497000, C358S494000, C250S208100, C250S235000, C382S312000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06809842
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to an improved image scanning device. During scanning processes, the document can be placed upwardly that the user can verify and align the placement of the document. If the document is inclined, the user can therefore adjust the document to match the requirement of the image scanning device and also the need of a user.
2. Background Description
Due to the issue of environment protection, recently the traditional paper documents have been requested to be converted into electric file format for archiving and transmitting purpose and need. The ideal non-paper office and home environment can therefore be achieved. In this case, image scanning devices are broadly employed in our world.
Generally, there are two kinds of documents. They are reflective documents and transparent documents. The reflective document is directed to a document which is non-transparent, such as an ordinary paper, a picture or a print. The transparent document is directed to a document which is able to let the light passing through, such as a film, a slide and the kind.
A traditional image scanning device is shown in
FIGS. 1A and 1B
. The traditional image scanning device
1
is employed to scan an ordinary reflective document in order to get the digitalized image of the document. The image scanning device comprises a lower housing
11
and an upper cover
12
. The lower housing
11
includes at least an axis
111
, a scanning module
112
, a document plate
113
and the driving module
114
. A user is needed to place a document
13
above the document plate
113
for further scanning. Especially, the document
13
is required to face down to the lower housing
11
. The user is therefore to close the cover on the document
13
. Once the document
13
is placed by facing down, the user is able to start the scanner driver program to scan, or to press a switch button, implemented on the scanner (not shown in the figures) to drive the image scanning device
1
for conducting a scan. When the image scanning device
1
is instructed by the user's action, the reflective document light source
1121
of the scanning module
112
is turned on to projecting a light to the document
13
. The light is further reflected back to the scanning module
112
by the document
13
. After the reflection provided by a reflection mirror
1123
, the path of light is changed to pass lens
1124
and be formed on the image generating module
1122
. generating module
1122
. The image generating module
1122
therefore generates and output digitalized signals of the specific portion of the document.
Accordingly, the driving module
114
of the image scanning device
1
urges the scanning module
112
to the direction shown as an arrow legend, for completing whole scanning process.
In view of the above, the scanning page of the document is required to face down in order to complete the scan. In this case, it is inconvenient to the usage. For examples, if the document is larger than the document plate, the user has to adjust the position of the document many times to get a proper scanning result. This is for the reason that the user cannot see the pages of the document due to the document is facing down. Further, if the page of the document is inclined the OCR (Optical Character Recognition) software may not be able to precisely recognize the words shown in the inclined scanned page image. Therefore, the user would like to avoid the inclination of the document during the scanning processes. In traditional scanning devices, due to the document facing down, the user is hard to adjust the document to be aligned.
Another known scanning type of the image scanning device is shown in
FIGS. 2A and 2B
. The scanning device is directed to scan a transparent document. The lower housing
11
is the same as the lower housing shown in FIG.
1
B. The upper cover
12
of the
FIGS. 1A and 1B
has been modified to an upper housing
14
. The upper housing includes a transparent document light source
141
and the light source driving module
142
. The transparent document light source
141
provides a light passing through the document
13
. Then following the method described in
FIG. 1B
, the light is projected into the image generating module
1122
. The image signals of the document is generated out as a digital form. Once a portion of the image of the document is generated, the driving module
114
drives the scanning module
112
along the direction shown by the arrow legend. At the meantime, the light source driving module
142
urges the light source
141
synchronously in order to scan the next portion of the document.
Regarding to the upper housing
14
of the above, there is a known model shown in FIG.
2
C. The upper housing
14
includes a light propagating plate
143
and a plate light
144
. The light propagating plate
143
can distribute the light equally to the whole area. The plate light provides the light to the plate for the distribution of the light. When the user conduct a scanning procedure, the light distributed by the plate would pass the transparent document and be projected on the image generating module
1122
as mentioned in the above as FIG.
1
B. The image signals of the document is generated out as a digital form. Once a portion of the image of the document is generated, the driving module
114
drives the scanning module
112
along the direction shown by the arrow legend. Especially, the scanning module
112
employs the light distributed by the plate. There is no need to drive the plate light.
In view of the above, since the document is placed facing down, even when the user is able to see the page of a transparent document, the content (such as the words, pictures or incline degree) is mirrored. It is still not easy to adjust the document at the user's instinct. Moreover, it is hard to recognize the characters when the characters are mirrored by reversing left and right sides.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide an apparatus for scanning documents at users' convenience, particularly by scanning a facing up document. The user is therefore able to align the document by directly viewing the pages for further scanning when the document faces up. Thus, the user is able to precisely adjust the placement and the inclination of the document.
REFERENCES:
patent: 6147778 (2000-11-01), Yamada et al.
patent: 6489602 (2002-12-01), Wang et al.
patent: 6587231 (2003-07-01), Sung
Chen Jone-Nun
Lu I-Chang
Tsai Jenn-Tsair
Coles Edward
Gibbs Heather D
Lowe Hauptman & Gilman & Berner LLP
Mustek Systems Inc.
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