Agfa Corporation

Timothy E Neale

Thomas Brady

Nicholas W Nardo

Dean E Demers

Mary Ann Werbinski

Peter A Titcomb

Richard J Strazdas

A scanner, utilizing a local buffer, prevents the occurrence of stop/start artifacts in the image data by selecting a scan rate that will not overflow the buffer. This is accomplished by having the host computer communicate to the scanner to instruct a modification to a default scanning speed. The modification is based upon an expected rate at which the host computer can consume the image data, prior to the beginning of the document scan. Consequently, the scanner does not generate image data faster than they can be accepted by the host computer, thus avoiding the need to stop the relative movement between the image sensor and the document.

Scanner carriage stop/start artifact suppression system and method

An autofocus process for imaging optics of a scanner comprises performing multiple scan-line image captures of the document to be scanned. In the preferred embodiment, these captures are of essentially the same scan-line. A focal position of imaging optics, which forms a scan-line image, is adjusted relative to an image detector in between the multiple scan-line captures of image data. In the preferred embodiment, the imaging optics is adjusted. Relay optics or a position of the image detector could alternatively be adjusted. In any case, a focus setting for a subsequent scanning operation is then calculated based on the image data from the multiple scan-line captures. In the preferred embodiment, this calculation yields a lens position for the imaging optics. The invention thus allows autofocussing to the document to be scanned. Problems associated with loss of calibration are avoided. Moreover, the system is able to adapt to documents where the image is not at the scanner's nominal focal plane.

Autofocus process and system with fast multi-region sampling

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Hampstead, NH, United States of America

Timothy E Neale