Optical: systems and elements – Scale or indicia reading – Prism
Patent
1991-12-23
1994-01-18
Henry, Jon W.
Optical: systems and elements
Scale or indicia reading
Prism
359837, 2064595, 40312, G02B 504, G02B 718, B65D 3304
Patent
active
052803856
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
This invention relates to methods of, and apparatus for, facilitating the viewing/inspection of a surface from a direction angularly disposed to such surface.
It is a frequent occurrence that alphanumeric and/or pictorial information provided upon the surface of an article is not readily readable or viewable for a variety of reasons.
A frequent cause of the difficulty arises from the modes of storage/packaging conventionally used with the articles involved. Another cause of the difficulty arises from the spatial relationship between articles or objects, e.g., instrument gauges, which restricts or prevents frontal viewing.
For example, in the packaging and storage of cassettes containing magnetic tapes, it is a standard practice to provide alphanumeric/pictorial information identifying the nature of the material stored upon the tape and any other information considered relevant to the selection and optimum use of the tape.
The conventional mode of cassette packaging is to house the tape-containing cassette in a generally rectangular container known as a library case, the latter normally including a cassette receiving and positionally locating section, and a so-called flip-up lid section.
Other forms of library case hold two cassettes side-by-side with their faces in the same plane or with their edges in the same plane.
For convenience, throughout this specification, that part of the library case or similar container, in which the article carrying the information to be read will be located, will be regarded as a base section, and the portion pivoted or otherwise associated with the base section, as the lid section.
It is also convenient to note that, whilst the following description and discussions in relation to the present invention will be centered around the application of the concepts of the invention to the combination of audio cassette tapes and associated library cases and to the identification of the content thereof, the invention can be applied to the storage of and to the subsequent identification of, other forms of storage media such as video cassettes, computer cassettes, compact discs, and to other objects/material when housed within associated storage cases or like containers.
The present invention is also applicable to the reading, identification, and viewing, of material/information from a direction which does not allow such to occur without use of the concepts of the present invention.
The base and lid sections are constructed in such manner that the cassette needs to be correctly orientated within the container for the lid section to close.
In practice, alphanumeric/pictorial information provided upon a major surface of a cassette can be readily viewed, and, in addition, in the event that the library case is provided with additional information along a second major surface of the cassette, the content of the library case can usually be identified by reading unaided the information provided on one or the other or both, of the major surfaces provided with such information.
Provided that the library case is transparent it is readily possible to read the information provided upon a tape cassette when stored in its protective library case and when handling the library cases individually. However, difficulties have been found to arise when it is desired to view the identifying information for one or a number of tape cassettes whilst their library cases are stacked either one-above-the-other or side-by-side, with or without a secondary container designed to house a plurality of tape cassette library cases. As will be appreciated, in each such stacking orientation, all of the information provided upon the major surfaces of the cassettes (except perhaps for that on any outermost cassette) is obscured as a result of the stacking involved.
In other words in the absence of replication of information directly on or otherwise by use of, those surfaces of the library cases that remain exposed following the packaging/stacking or on the exposed surfaces of a secondary container, it is necessary to remove i
REFERENCES:
patent: 3638955 (1972-02-01), Wada
patent: 3712262 (1973-01-01), Kisselmann et al.
patent: 3786626 (1974-01-01), Hurt
patent: 3887791 (1975-06-01), Kitchens
patent: 4099851 (1978-07-01), Rethore
patent: 4274714 (1981-06-01), Okamura
patent: 4673994 (1987-06-01), Hida
patent: 4869582 (1989-09-01), Nakajima et al.
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