The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Mar. 09, 1993
Filed:
Apr. 29, 1991
Jonathan E Schmidt, San Antonio, TX (US);
Snap-Fax Corporation, Dallas, TX (US);
Abstract
A real-time still-video to facsimile conversion system (FIG. 3) converts a still-video image frame into a half-tone facsimile reproduction without having to store an entire intermediated grey-scale image frame. Conversion of a still-video image to a half-tone facsimile output is accomplished by repeatedly transmitting the still-video image frame from a still-video source to a still-video input circuit (10), with a virtual facsimile page synchronization module (20) providing synchronization to a virtual facsimile page. In successive image frames, a video pixel grabber (34) grabs successive columns of image pixels, and provides them to a half-tone pixel converter (32) for conversion to facsimile lines--for the exemplary embodiment a 3.times.3 half-tone pixel format is used, so that the 525 raster lines of an image pixel column are transformed into three facsimile lines using a total of 1575 dots per line (out of the standard 1728 dot facsimile line). After conversion of each column of image pixels, the corresponding facsimile lines are buffered in a facsimile multi-line buffer (36) for conventional facsimile transmission by a half-tone facsimile output module (40) to a facsimile machine for facsimile reproduction.