United Parcel Service of America, Inc.

Northwest Podiatric Laboratory, Inc.

Superfeet Worldwide, Inc.

Northwest Podiatrie Laboratory, Inc.

Christopher E Smith

Jeff Gray

Edward Collins, Ii

Peter Daley

Earle Timothy

Mihael Klancnik

Ming Lei

An apparatus and method for determining contours of a patient's foot ankle and lower leg. The apparatus includes an alignment structure that orientates the foot for imaging. The alignment structure includes at least one support member that engages the plantar surface of the foot substantially only in the immediate area of the lateral metatarsal heads of the foot, preferably the fifth metatarsal head. The support generates a dorsally-directed force that locks the midtarsal joint. The alignment structure further includes a saddle that engages the rearfoot and a laser beam for aligning the second metatarsal head with the distal one-third of the lower leg to place the subtalar joint in a neutral condition. The foot is thus suspended in space such that imaging is able to produce an accurate measurement of the subject areas of the foot, ankle and lower leg without distortion of the soft tissues or bone structure.

Apparatus and method for imaging feet

Footwear is provided having a midsole platform, a full length insole and a orthotic midsole in the form of an orthotic shell received between the midsole platform and the insole. The orthotic shell has a heel portion to support a heel of a foot of a wearer and a forefoot portion to support a forefoot of the wearer at least in a region behind and near metatarsal heads of the foot. The orthotic shell is shaped to partially cup the heel and support the forefoot in one of a plurality of determined orientations. The footwear may further include a plurality of support plugs to support the orthotic shell in one of the determined orientations and a shank coupled to the midsole platform to increase torsional rigidity of the footwear with respect to a longitudinal length thereof. Methods of making footwear are also provided.

Footwear with orthotic midsole

An apparatus and method for determining contours of a patient's foot. The apparatus includes an alignment section that orientates the foot relative to an optical imaging section. The alignment section includes at least one support member located proximate a focal length of the imaging section, that engages the plantar surface substantially only in the immediate area of the fifth metatarsal head of the foot. The support generates a dorsally-directed load that locks the midtarsal joint. The alignment section further includes a heel stirrup and a laser beam or other reference line for aligning the second metatarsal head with the distal one-third of the lower leg, to place the subtalar joint in a neutral condition. The foot is thus suspended in space such that the imaging section is able to obtain an accurate measurement of the plantar surface without distortion of the soft tissues or bone structure of the foot.

Pediatric foot orthoses

A system for using OCR processing to read human readable characters that correspond to an unsuccessfully decoded code word in a bar code symbol. An imaging system captures an image of a label that includes a bar code symbol and corresponding human readable characters. The system attempts to decode the bar code symbol by decoding each of the constituent bar code characters. If a bar code characters is not successfully decoded, the system locates the associated human readable text and segments the text into individual character images. The unsuccessfully decoded bar code character is mapped to one or more of the alphanumeric character images, which are converted into text characters. The resulting ASCII data is used to create a substitute bar code character in the bar code symbology. After the bar code symbol is decoded using the substitute bar code character, the symbol is validated through check summing or other means.

System and method for OCR assisted bar code decoding

A bar code reader decodes a bar code symbol in a pixel image by transforming the data corresponding to the symbol along a first scan line, where the transformation comprises rotation and stretching. The reader generates a composite vector and a count vector from the transformed data. The reader then transforms (by rotating and stretching) another set of data corresponding to the symbol along a second scan line. The reader updates the composite and count vectors using the second set of transformed data. The reader then generates a one-dimensional composite signal from the composite and count vectors. The reader decodes the symbol by decoding the composite signal.

Method and apparatus for decoding bar code symbols using subpixel scan

A bar code reader decodes a bar code symbol in a pixel image by transforming the data corresponding to the symbol along a first scan line, where the transformation comprises rotation and stretching. The reader generates a whitening gradient vector, a blackening gradient vector, and a count vector from the transformed data. The reader then transforms (by rotating and stretching) another set of data corresponding to the symbol along a second scan line. The reader updates the whitening and blackening gradient vectors and the count vector using the second set of transformed data. The reader then generates whitening and blackening gradient signals from the whitening and blackening gradient vectors and the count vector. The reader segments the whitening and blackening gradient signals and generates a single one-dimensional reconstructed signal based on the weighted centroids of the two segmented gradient signals. The reader then decodes the symbol by decoding the reconstructed signal.

Method and apparatus for decoding bar code symbols using gradient signals

A bar code reader locates and decodes a bar code symbol in a pixel image by searching along a selected scan line for a candidate quiet zone and then counting the bright/dark transitions that correspond to candidate bars and spaces. The reader determines whether the candidate quiet zone and candidate bars and spaces correspond to a bar code symbol, and, if so, decodes the symbol. When processing binary pixel images, the reader searches for candidate quiet zones and counts bright/dark transitions by analyzing the image one byte of pixels at a time.

Method and apparatus for decoding bar code symbols using byte-based

Method and apparatus for decoding bar code symbols using composite

A bar code reader decodes a bar code symbol, one character at a time, by analyzing the spaces of each character independently from the bars of each character. The reader determines the widths of each space and each bar. The reader then determines a space-width threshold based on the widths of the spaces and a bar-width threshold based on the widths of the bars. The reader then classifies each space as being either narrow or wide by comparing each space to the space-width threshold. The reader also classifies each bar as being either narrow or wide by comparing each bar to the bar-width threshold. The reader then decodes the character according to the narrow/wide classifications.

Growing community of inventors

Newtown, CT, United States of America

Christopher E Smith