Eastman-kodak Company

George O Simmons

Yongchun Lee

Charles E Brugger

Nelson Adrian Blish

Robert M Westcott

Randall R Maysick

Mark A Barton

Stephen A Horstman

Joseph T Olesik

Wenjin Zhou

James R Pamper

A modular scanning system () consisting of a first scanning unit () and a plurality of tethered scanning () and digital capture elements () providing both sheet-fed, platen, and digitally captured documents and photographs. The first scanning unit () includes all the mechanisms necessary to permit sheet-fed scanning of documents. The platen scanner () provides a second scanning unit which performs platen scanning of documents on a glass top () of the platen scanner (). Since the platen scanner () is detachable, the user has the option to select the platen scanning functionality but with the additional flexibility of selectively mounting or storing the platen element.

Document scanning system with tethered platen element providing sheet-fed and platen scanning functions

An image scanning system for producing an electronic version of a hardcopy element which is compensated for spectral content of an illumination source in the image scanning system, the image scanning system includes a sensor for receiving light containing the hardcopy element for forming and storing an electronic version of the hardcopy element; a spectral sensor for receiving light from the illumination source and storing an electronic version of spectral contents of the illumination source; and a conversion system for receiving the electronic versions of the illumination source and the hardcopy element and creating a compensation table that compensates subsequent hardcopy elements passed through the conversion system.

Image color balance for scanners using an illumination spectral sensor

A process and system for automating the image quality inspection and correction for scanned document which previously required a human operator. For every scanned and thresholded image, the process and system performs an automatic evaluation through a binary image quality detection system which generates an image noise index indicative of the amount of image artifacts or image loss. When a poor quality scanned page is detected, for example, too much speckle noise, the gray scale image is retrieved or the image is rescanned. The gray scale image then automatically undergoes an image quality correction process to produce a clean, readable binary image.

Automatic image quality evaluation and correction technique for digitized and thresholded document images

A scanner for digitizing a document includes a digitizer for digitizing the document into a first color space; a circuit for converting the digitized data into a second color space having a luminance channel and two chrominance channels; a multiplexer having text, approximate actual color of a uniform area and a predetermined color as input for selecting either the text, approximate actual color or the predetermined color as outputs; and multiplexer control input which determines which of the outputs will be selected as actual output based on a uniform area of the document.

High-speed scanner having image processing for improving the color reproduction and visual appearance thereof

A method for performing color dropout on a digitized document, the method comprises the steps of obtaining color values from the digitized document for background and a color of interest to a user; transforming the color values of the background and the color of interest into an identical gray scale value according to a color dropout function; obtaining a gray scale value different from the identical gray scale value for the remaining portion of the image according to the color dropout function; and thresholding the gray scale values obtained from the previous steps to obtain a binary image that substantially eliminates color classification error which retains character integrity by a functional transformation that suppresses color fringe artifacts.

Generation of a color dropout function for use in electronic color dropout

An intelligent feeding and separating device for consistently separating an outermost sheet of media from a stack and feeding it to an imaging rendering apparatus, includes: a) a sheet transport mechanism; b) a feed device for feeding sheets to the sheet transport mechanism; c) a separation mechanism adjacent to the feed mechanism; d) at least one drive mechanism in operable association with the feed or separation mechanisms, and comprising a feed or separation roller reversal mechanism; e) a plurality of different types of sensor devices adjacent to the feed mechanism for measuring characteristics of the sheets being fed; and f) a microprocessor in communication with the sensor devices and the feed or separation roller direction reversal mechanism; wherein, depending upon input from the sensor devices, the microprocessor outputs to the feed or separation roller direction reversal mechanism to address feed-related problems encountered during operation.

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North Greece, NY, United States of America

George O Simmons