Ricoh Company, Ltd.

Nikon Corporation

Bridgestone Corporation

Nikon Vision Co., Ltd.

Kabushiki Kaisha Toshiba

Masahiro Nakamura

Peter E Hart

Yasushi Enami

Shinichi Kajigaya

Yoshio Kawajiri

Hiromi Nakanishi

Tadahiko Hoshi

Provided is an optical device including an object-side body portion to and from which an eyepiece-side support member supporting an eyepiece system optical component can be attached and removed; an objective system optical component supported on the object-side body portion; a housing section that houses at least a portion of the eyepiece-side support member; a manipulation member by which a rotation manipulation is performed on the housing section; a following member that is driven and displaced by the manipulation member being rotated; and a gripping member that has at least a portion thereof arranged inside the housing section and grips the eyepiece-side support member when the following member is displaced. The manipulation member rotates freely relative to the following member when a gripping force exerted on the eyepiece-side support member by the gripping member reaches a prescribed value.

Optical device

Providing a compact lightweight stereomicroscope securing a light weight necessary for carrying, capable of securing stability upon attaching a camera. The stereomicroscope includes a basethat places a sample thereon, a microscope bodyhaving a pair of left and right observation optical systems for observing the sample and a photographing optical system that leads the light from the sample substantially corresponding to the focusing center of the observation optical systems to a imaging means, a columnthat is disposed on the baseand supports the microscope body, a support means that supports the imaging means, and a connecting meansthat rotatably connects the microscope bodyto the column. An optical axis I of the photographing optical system becomes substantially parallel to a rotation axis O of the connecting means.

Stereomicroscope

The present invention is related to an information management system and device that makes it possible to connect the conventional facsimiles, to a network system such as a local area network (LAN).

Information management system capable of connecting facsimile machines which are incompatible with network systems to network systems

Optics-based inclination measuring apparatus (10) for measuring an inclination angle .theta. relative to the horizontal. The apparatus includes a lens (20), a light source (30), a sensor (34) having one or more sensor sections, and a container (40) having a non-opaque near-wall (44). The container contains a liquid (54) having a free surface (60). A light beam (80) from the light source passes through the lens, through the non-opaque container wall and reflects off the free liquid surface. The light beam then passes back through the lens and impinges on the sensor, forming an image, such as a spot image. The location of the spot image on the sensor depends on the inclination angle of the inclination measuring device. Signal ratios from the sensor sections are used to determine the relative location of the spot image and hence the inclination angle.

Inclination measuring apparatus

A rubbery marine fender comprises a main rubber body portion, a shock receiving rubber portion and a securing rubber flange portion, in which a rubber buildup portion protruding outward from the outer surface of the main rubber body portion is arranged on the outer surface of the main rubber body portion at either or both regions adjacent or close to a buckling peripheral line thereof.

Rubbery marine fenders

A rubbery buckling-type marine fender such as cell-type hollow cylindrical marine fender, frustoconical-type hollow cylindrical marine fender, V-shaped marine fender or the like comprises a main rubber body portion, a securing flange portion, and a shock receiving portion, in which a rubber thickened region is formed in the inner peripheral surface of the main rubber body portion at a given position adjacent or close to a buckling point to prevent falling of reaction force during the buckling deformation.

Marine fenders

An inclination angle metering apparatus is arranged such that a beam from a light source is split into two beams by a half-mirror provided in a light path between the light source and the surface of a liquid. One beam is reflected by the liquid surface falls on a line sensor, and the other beam falls on the line sensor without reflected by the liquid surface. When a housing and the liquid are relatively inclined, an incident position of one beam changes on the line sensor, whereas an incident position of the other beam does not change. An inclination angle to the liquid surface is determined based on the incident position of one beam with respect to the incident position of the other beam.

Inclination angle metering apparatus

A method and an apparatus for isolating an area corresponding to a character or word in an optical character recognition device. Original manuscript images are compressed (reduced) in a scanning direction corresponding to the direction of the original manuscript image's line (column), and areas where the black picture elements correpsonding to the compressed original manuscript images are connected with each other are searched by following the contour of the areas of connected black picture elements contained in the compressed images. Then, a minimum coordinate point and a maximum coordinate point are obtained in accordance with the areas determined by searching, and rectangular areas determined by the minimum coordinate point and the maximum coordinate point of the area where the black picture elements are connected with each other are extracted. Finally, each area of the original manuscript images corresponding to the extracted rectangular areas is isolated as an area of image.

Method and an apparatus for isolating an area corresponding to a

A character recognition method includes the following steps. The first step is a step of provisionally selecting a segment position for dividing a character line image into image parts within a character recognition processing section in accordance with a condition with respect to widths of black and white regions exhibited in a vertical projection of the character line image within the character recognition processing section. The second step is a step of dividing the character line image into image parts at the segment position to thereby extract the image parts. The third step is a step of subjecting each of the image parts to character recognition. The fourth step is a step of determining an optimum segment position in accordance with results of character recognition. The fifth step is a step of outputting a result of character recognition associated with the optimum segment position.

Character recognition method

A character region extracting method adapted to character recognition comprises the following three steps. The first step is to segmentate a first region (BL1) from a document image by extracting projection of the document image in a first direction parallel to a character string and detecting a range in which the projection is continuous in a second direction perpendicular to the first direction. The range defines the first region. The second step is to segmentate a second region (sBL1) from the first region by extracting projection of the first region in the second direction and detecting a range in which the projection is continuous in the first direction. The range defines the second region. The third step is to segmentate a third region (BL2) from the second region by extracting projection of the second region in the first direction and detecting a range in which the projection is continuous in the second direction. The range defines the third region. The third region may be joined together so as to form a fourth region containing characters or a character string.

Character region extracting method and apparatus capable of implementing

A disc player for playing compact audio discs includes a plurality of horizontally spaced disc compartments each including a disc tray for holding a disc horizontally and a disc playback module horizontally movable between and alignable with the disc compartments for playing the discs held in the disc trays. Each disc tray is independently extendable from or retractable into its respective disc compartment for loading and unloading discs in the disc compartment.

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Yokohama, Japan

Masahiro Nakamura