United Parcel Service of America, Inc.

Kenneth Alan Lais

Johannes A Bjorner

James S Morton

James V Recktenwalt

Kevin Y Hamada

Johannes A S Bjorner

A two camera over-the-belt optical character recognition (OCR) system for reading the destination addresses on parcels carried on a conveyor belt. The parcels bear an orientation defining fluorescent ink fiduciary mark that is typically stamped on the parcel in the same area as the destination address. The fiduciary mark is located approximately in the center of the destination address block and oriented in the same direction as the underlying destination address. The first camera, a low resolution CCD camera, captures an image of the fiduciary mark. A host computer stores an image of the fiduciary mark, determines the position and orientation of the fiduciary mark, and defines a region of interest about the fiduciary mark. The second camera, a high resolution CCD camera, captures a grey-scale image of the conveyor and the parcels carried on the conveyor. The host computer extracts and stores the portion of the high resolution image that is within the region of interest including the text defining the destination address of the parcel. The host computer then rotates and displays the text image and/or transmits the text image to a text reader.

Two camera system for locating and storing indicia on conveyed items

Fiduciary mark detection system usable with an over-the-belt optical character recognition (OCR) reader for ascertaining the position and orientation of text within the destination address on parcels moving along a conveyor, comprising charged coupled device (CCD) array, analog-to-digital (A/D) converter, general purpose computer, and software program. Image processing software program comprising projection histograms, convolution filtering, correlation, radial variance, first moments of inertia, edge image analysis, Hough method, detection confidence testing. Orientation defining mark comprising fluorescent ink placed approximately in the center of the destination address block on a parcel is non obstructive of the underlying text and may be affixed to parcel any time prior to scanning. Fiduciary mark comprising two circles of different diameter oriented such that a vector from the center of large circle to center of small circle is oriented in the same direction as underlying text.

Method for locating the position and orientation of a fiduciary mark

An apparatus for providing uniform illumination to a surface includes a chamber defined by a wall, the wall having an opaque wall portion and a partially transparent wall portion. A light source such as a flash lamp, is mounted in the chamber. The interior surface of the chamber wall is light-reflective. The partially transparent wall portion has transparent apertures which permit light to exit the light chamber. The partially transparent wall portion has a first section with a first average transparency and a second section with a second average transparency. In operation, the apparatus completely covers a target surface while light generated by the light source either directly exits the light chamber through the transparent apertures or is reflected off the reflective interior surfaces of the light chamber before exiting the light chamber through the transparent apertures, uniformly illuminating the target surface.

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New Fairfield, CT, United States of America

Kenneth Alan Lais