Sick Ag

Hannes Ruf

Romain Müller

Johannes Rheinboldt

A camera based code reader is provided that has an image sensor for detecting image data having an optical code, a memory for storing image data, a first processing unit for transmitting the image data from the image sensor to the memory in an image data stream, and a second processing unit that is configured for a decoding in which the stored image data are evaluated to read the code content of the optical code, In this respect, the first processing unit is configured for at least one auxiliary function in which the first processing unit reads back at least some of the image data from the memory and writes a pre-processing result back to the memory; and in that the second processing unit is configured to invoke the auxiliary function of the first processing unit as required to assist the decoding.

Camera based code reader and method of reading optical codes

A camera based code reader for reading an optical code on an object in a relative movement to the code reader has a linear image sensor to record a respective image line and a control and evaluation unit having at least one first pre-processing unit and a further processing unit. The first pre-processing unit is connected to the image sensor and is configured to read image line by image line in the course of the relative movement, to rescale a respective image line with a zoom factor z in a pre-processing, and then to forward it to the further processing unit. The further processing unit is configured to read the optical code from the image lines. The image sensor has a plurality of linear arrangements of light reception elements. Some of the light reception elements are sensitive to white light and some are respectively sensitive to only one color.

Reading an optical code

A camera includes an image sensor having a first recording channel of a first sensitivity for recording first image data including first pixels and a second recording channel of a second sensitivity lower than the first sensitivity for recording second image data including second pixels. The first pixels and second pixels are associated with one another by capturing a same object area. A control and evaluation unit processing the image data is configured to suppress noise effects in the second image data using a noise suppression filter that assigns a new value to a respective considered second pixel based on second pixels in a neighborhood of the considered second pixel. The noise suppression filter takes the second pixels in the neighborhood into account with a weighting that depends on how similar first pixels associated with the second pixels are to the associated first pixel of the respective considered second pixel.

Growing community of inventors

Waldkirch, Germany

Hannes Ruf