JPH0354455Y2 - - Google Patents

Description

[Detailed explanation of the idea] [Industrial application field] The present invention relates to a manual scanning type image input device.

[Conventional technology]

Conventionally, as image input devices, for example, facsimiles, plain paper copiers, diazo copiers, and the like are generally known.

[The problem that the idea aims to solve]

However, all of these conventional image input devices have problems in that it is difficult to selectively input images of small parts, and their large size makes them inconvenient to carry.

In order to solve these problems, a manual scanning type, so-called hand scan type device has been considered. However, this type of device is generally powered by batteries, and in this case, in order to prevent the battery from running out, the power switch is normally turned on just before use, but it takes time for the power to start up. However, there is a problem in that the switch does not operate normally immediately after the switch is turned on, making it impossible to input a good image.

Therefore, the present invention was proposed in view of the above-mentioned conventional problems, and it is easy to selectively input images of small parts, is small, simple, and convenient to carry, and has good image input. The purpose of this invention is to provide a new image input device that is possible.

[Means to solve the problem]

The present invention uses a linear light source that illuminates the surface of the document through an opening provided in the housing, and receives the return light from the surface of the document illuminated by the linear light source to obtain image information of the document. A line sensor for reading, a running roller that rotates in accordance with the running motion of scanning the document surface, and a position detection means that generates a position detection signal based on the rotation of the running roller are housed in the housing, A manual scanning type image input device that reads image information of a document by controlling the operation of the line sensor based on an output signal from the position detection means generated by manually scanning the casing. , a light-receiving element that receives a part of the light emitted from the linear light source, a braking means that applies braking to the traveling roller, and electricity that controls the operation of the braking means according to the output from the light-receiving element. - mechanical conversion means, driving the electro-mechanical conversion means when the detection output from the light receiving element becomes an output indicating that the light from the linear light source has reached a predetermined brightness; The braking action of the braking means on the traveling roller is released.

[Effect]

In the manual scanning type image input device according to the present invention, when the surface of the document is manually scanned, the line sensor receives the return light from the surface of the document illuminated by a linear light source. Read image information.

In this image input device, the detection output from the light receiving element that receives part of the light emitted from the linear light source becomes an output indicating that the light from the linear light source has reached a predetermined brightness. At times, the braking operation of the braking means on the traveling roller is released by driving an electro-mechanical conversion means that controls the operation of the braking means that applies braking to the traveling roller.

〔Example〕

Embodiments of the image input device according to the present invention will be described in detail below with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a roller braking control system in the image input device of this embodiment. This Figure 1 will be explained in detail later, but first,
The image input device 100 of this embodiment will be described with reference to FIGS. 2 to 5.

An opening 11 is provided at the bottom of the housing 10, and a linear light source 21 such as a tungsten lamp or a light emitting diode array for illuminating the surface Pd of the document to be input and the linear light source 21 are located near the opening 11. A light receiving element 22 for detecting the brightness of the light source 21 is provided respectively. A half mirror 23 is provided above the opening 11, and the light incident from the opening 11 passes through the half mirror 23.
Or reflected by the half mirror 23,
The light reaches the window 12 or rod lens array 24 provided on the top surface of the housing 10, respectively. The light reaching the window 12 allows the user to input images while directly viewing them with the naked eye. On the other hand, the rod lens array 24 has a plurality of distributed refractive index columnar lenses (for example, diameter 1 to 2 mm) arranged in a flat plate shape, the refractive index of which increases as it approaches the center. is arranged so that it is horizontal. The light from this rod lens array 24 is transmitted to the rod lens array 24.
The end surface 24a of 4 and the light receiving surface 25a are arranged to face each other.
The light is incident on a CCD line sensor (hereinafter simply referred to as a line sensor) 25. That is, the opening 11
The surface Pd of the document to be inputted is illuminated by a linear light source 21 provided near the surface of the document, and an image of the surface Pd of the document is transmitted to the light receiving surface of the line sensor 25 via a half mirror 23 and a rod lens array 24. The image is formed on 25a at the same magnification.

The rollers 26 and 27 are rotatably supported at the lower portions of the side walls 13 and 14 of the housing 10, respectively, so that the image input device 100 can move and scan the surface Pd of the document. It's summery.

The position detection device 30 consisting of an optical rotary encoder includes a rotation detection slit disk 31 that rotates integrally with one roller 26, and two sets of rotation detectors 32 and 33 facing each other with the slit disk 31 in between. It is configured.

The slit disk 31 has a large number of transparent slits 31s provided at equal intervals around its periphery. The rotation detectors 32 and 33 are light emitting elements 32s and 33, respectively.
A pair of arms 34a and 3 sandwich the slit disk 31 of the holder 34, which is fixed to one side wall 13 of the housing 10.
4b, an angle of nθ° + θ°/4 (where θ° is the angular interval of the slits 31s, n is n=0, 1, 2, etc.) with respect to the rotation axis of the slit disk 31. It is arranged to stretch. As is well known, by arranging both rotation detectors 32 and 33 in this manner, the direction of rotation of the slit disk 31 can be determined.

The braking member 41 for braking the roller 27 is
It is rotatably attached to the side wall 14 of the housing 100 by a rotation shaft 42 provided approximately at the center in the longitudinal direction. Moreover, the rotation shaft 42 of this braking member 41
At the upper part is a solenoid 4 fixed to the side wall 14.
No. 3 plungers 43p are connected to each other, and the other end of a spring 44, one end of which is fixed to the upper front wall 15 of the housing 10, is attached to the upper part.

Further, as a means for putting the image input device 100 into operation, for example, a micro switch (not shown) is provided in association with the spindle of the roller 27. That is, by holding the image input device 100 in your hand and placing it on the surface Pd of the document to be input, the microswitch is closed by the pressing force between the image input device 100 and the surface Pd. ,
The linear light source 21, line sensor 25, etc. start operating.

For example, as shown in FIG. 6, the linear light source 21 has a brightness that varies from time tp to time _tp when the microswitch is closed (for example, _0.2 to _0.3 ).
It has a rise characteristic such that it reaches a predetermined brightness L ₁ that does not cause any problem in practical use after a few seconds (on the order of seconds), that is, at time t ₁ . Therefore, if the input of image information is started before the time t ₁ when the brightness reaches the predetermined brightness L ₁ , good image information will not be input due to insufficient light amount. Therefore, this image input device 100
Then, until the linear light source 21 reaches a predetermined brightness _L1 , the image input device 100
The roller 27 is braked by the brake member 41 to prevent it from being moved above. That is, as shown in FIG. 1, a light receiving element 22 that detects the brightness of the linear light source 21 provided near the opening 11 has a reference voltage applied to a non-inverting input terminal.
It is connected to the inverting input terminal of the comparator 45 to which Vref is connected. The output terminal of this comparator 45 is connected to a solenoid drive circuit 46 that drives the solenoid 43. Further, the reference voltage Vref connected to the comparator 45 is
As shown in FIG. 7, at time _t1 when the brightness of the linear light source 21 detected by the light receiving element 22 reaches a predetermined brightness _L1 , the output of the comparator 45 is reversed from a low level to a high level. It is set as follows.

And by setting it like this,
Since the output of the comparator 45 continues to be held at a low level during the period from the lighting start time t ₀ of the linear light source 21 to the time t ₁ , the solenoid drive circuit 46 does not drive the solenoid 43 . Therefore, the braking member 41 is rotated in the direction of arrow A by the spring 44, and the roller 27 is braked. In addition, the linear light source 2
At time t ₁ when the brightness of 1 reaches a predetermined brightness L ₁ , the output of the comparator 45 is inverted to a high level, and the solenoid drive circuit 46 drives the solenoid 43 accordingly. Therefore, the braking member 41 is circuited in the direction of arrow B, and the braking of the roller 27 is released. After time _t1 , the brightness of the linear light source 21 becomes equal to or higher than _L1 , so the braking of the roller 27 continues to be released.

By providing the braking control system as described above, when the amount of light from the linear light source 21 is insufficient, image information is not input, and the linear light source 2
Image information can be input only when the brightness of 1 is equal to or higher than _L1 .

Note that instead of detecting the brightness of the linear light source 21 with the light receiving element 22, a timer may be configured using, for example, a counter, and the rotation of the braking member 41 may be temporally controlled. Further, in addition to controlling the rotation of the braking member 41 using the output of the comparator 45, the image signal processing system described below may be controlled at the same time.

Next, processing of the image signal obtained by the line sensor 25 will be explained. As shown in FIG. 8, the line sensor 25 receives a reset pulse of period T issued from the line sensor drive circuit 51.
The drive is controlled by _PR . In addition, a reset pulse from the line sensor drive circuit 51
P _R is the clear terminal of the D flip-flop circuit 52
It is also supplied to memories 53 such as CLR, semiconductor cards, and magnetic disks. In this embodiment, it is assumed that the memory 53 is provided externally to the image input device 100. Further, the clock input terminal CK of the D flip-flop circuit 52 is supplied with the position detection pulse P _P from the position detection device 30, and the data input terminal D is supplied with "1". The image signal obtained by the line sensor 25 is converted into a digital signal by an analog/digital (A/D) conversion circuit 54 and written into the memory 53 as image data V.
The address of No. 3 is determined by the reset pulse P _R and the output pulse P ₀ from the output terminal Q of the D flip-flop circuit 52. That is, for example, the reset pulse
The "row" of the address is determined by P _R , and the "column" of the address is determined by the output pulse P ₀ , and one image data Vmn is stored in one address Amn. Note that the resolution is about 7 data/mm to 10 data/mm.

Further, this will be explained in detail using the time chart shown in FIG. Reset pulse with constant period T shown in (A)
With respect to P _R , the position detection pulse P _R from the position detection device 30 is determined by the number of pulses within the period T, for example, as shown in (B) to (D), depending on the scanning speed at which the image input device 100 is manually scanned. changes. If the scanning speed in case (B) is v ₀ , then the scanning speeds in cases (C) and (D) are 2v ₀ and 3v ₀ , respectively.

Since "1" is always supplied to the data input terminal D of the D flip-flop circuit 52, it is set by the position detection pulse P _P and reset by the reset pulse _PR . Therefore, regardless of whether the scanning speed is v ₀ , 2v ₀ , or 3v ₀ , the shaded pulses are thinned out, and the output pulse
P ₀ becomes as shown in (E). That is, among the image data V stored in the memory 53 when the scanning speed is v ₀ , when the scanning speed is 2v ₀ , 1 out of 2 data
3 if data is ignored and scan rate is 3v ₀
Two of the data will be ignored.

In other words, as shown in FIG. 10, when the scanning speed is from 0 to _v0 , the compression ratio of the image to be input is constant at 1, and when the scanning speed is from _v0 to _3v0 , the compression ratio is set to 1. This means that the image data V is written into the memory 53 by changing linearly from 3 to 3. Therefore, in FIG. 10, if the scanning direction is the direction of the arrow and the input image is the letter "A", then when the scanning speed is 2v ₀ , the letter "A" is horizontal compared to when the scanning speed is 0 to v ₀ . In the case of 3v ₀ , the data is similarly compressed to 1/3 and written to the memory 53.

By configuring the image signal processing system as described above, the image input device 100 is usually moved within the scanning speed range of 0 to _v0 , and images are captured at a compression ratio of 1, that is, without compression, which is not very important. When capturing an image that can be sufficiently recognized even if the number of images or image data is small, the image input device 100 can be moved at high speed so that the scanning speed is v ₀ or more, and the image can be compressed and captured. This allows you to capture more images,
This is particularly effective when the memory 53 has a small storage capacity, such as a semiconductor card.

Note that, for example, an N signal counter (1/N frequency divider) may be provided between the position detection device 30 and the D flip-flop circuit 52 to change the image compression ratio. Furthermore, if the D flip-flop circuit 52 is omitted, the image compression ratio can be fixed at N regardless of the scanning speed.

Next, the usage and operation of the image input device 100 of this embodiment having the above-described configuration will be explained.

For example, as shown in FIG.
When placed on the document, the micro switch (not shown) is closed by the pressing force between the image input device 100 and the surface Pd of the document, and the image input device 1
00 operation begins. At this time, as described above, until the brightness of the linear light source 21 reaches the predetermined brightness _L1 , the roller 27 is braked by the braking member 41, so the image input device 100 is not moved on the plane Pd. , input of unauthorized image signals is prevented. When the brightness of the linear light source 21 reaches a predetermined brightness _L1 , the solenoid 43 is activated and the braking member 4 is activated.
The braking of roller 27 by 1 is released. Then, an index signal for image information is generated, and at the same time, a reset pulse _PR is generated from the line sensor drive circuit 51, and image information immediately below the opening 11 is read into the line sensor 25. After that, when the image input device 100 is moved by manual scanning along the surface Pd of the document, for example, at a scanning speed within the range of 0 to _v0 , this movement causes the rollers 26 and 27 to move.
And the slit disk 31 rotates. When the slit disk 31 begins to rotate, the first slit connects the light emitting element 31s and the light receiving element 31r of one rotation detector 32.
Detection pulse P _P is generated. This position detection pulse P _P causes the memory 5
The "column" of the address No. 3 is determined, and the "row" of the address is determined by the reset pulse P _R , and the image data V ₁ (the first row) of the linear screen read at this first address is 1 data) is written into the memory 53. On the other hand, an image input device 100 is mounted on the light receiving surface 25a of the line sensor 25.
As a result of this movement, an image of the second linear screen adjacent to the first linear screen is formed and read. The image input device 100 moves further, and the slit is connected to the light emitting element 33s and the light receiving element 33r of the second rotation detector 33.
, the second position detection pulse P _P
is generated and the second data is sent from the line sensor 25.
V2 is read and written to the second address of the memory 53. Also, at the same time, the third linear screen is read. Below, image input device 1
The same operation is repeated every time 00 moves a distance corresponding to the distance between the slits 31s. Note that the image input device 100 is normally configured to move at a low scanning speed within the range of 0 to _v0 , and to capture images that are not very important or images that can be sufficiently confirmed even with a small amount of data. In such a case, the object may be moved at a high speed such that the scanning speed v ₀ or more is achieved.

For example, if the image input device 100 moves in the opposite direction while inputting an image at a scanning speed within the range of 0 to _v0 , the two sets of rotation detectors 32 and 33 cooperate to prevent the image input device 100 from moving in the opposite direction. is detected and a reverse running detection signal is issued. This reverse running detection signal is supplied to the memory 53, and the position detection pulse from the position detection device 30 is sent to the memory 53.
Every time P _P is supplied, the data written in the memory 53 is sequentially erased from the end. If the image input device 100 runs backwards by n data after N data have already been input, the number of data remaining in the memory 53 is (N-n), and at that time, the image input device 100 It is located at the position where the N-n+1)th data is taken in. When the image input device 100 moves forward by n data again, the number of data written to the memory 53 becomes N, with no excess or deficiency. In other words, data before and after the reverse run can be input continuously without duplication or omission of data.

After inputting the required data, the image input device 1
When 00 is released from the surface Pd, the pressure on the roller 27 is released, the micro switch (not shown) is released, and an end signal is written at the end of image input. After that, the image input device 100 becomes inactive.

By attaching the memory 53 in which image data has been written to a suitable reading device, an image corresponding to the data can be reproduced on an image display device such as a cathode ray tube. It is also possible to obtain a hard copy using a separate printer.

It should be noted that instead of the above-mentioned microswitch that is operated by pressing force, a switch that is operated by manual operation may be provided, for example, on the side wall 14 of the housing 10. Further, the memory 53 is provided in the image input device 100, and a display device is provided on the top surface of the casing 10 to display the remaining capacity of the memory 53, the remaining capacity of the battery, etc., and the image data held in the memory 53 is It is also possible to provide an image display device such as a liquid crystal display or a flat cathode ray tube to display various images as appropriate.

[Effect of idea]

As described above, the present invention reads image information of a document by controlling the operation of a line sensor based on the output from a position detection means that generates a position signal based on the rotation of a running roller provided in a housing. In a manual scanning image reading device that performs the , the electro-mechanical conversion means for controlling the operation of the braking means that brakes the running roller is released to release the braking action of the braking means on the running roller, and the image information of the original is detected by the line sensor. This method solves problems such as the traveling roller rotating inadvertently, causing malfunctions, and the data captured by the line sensor becoming inaccurate due to low illuminance from the light source. It is possible to always accurately read the image information of the original.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a roller braking control system in an embodiment of the image input device according to the present invention;
FIG. 2 is a schematic perspective view showing the appearance and usage of the image input device of the above embodiment, FIG. 3 is a schematic perspective view schematically showing the internal structure of the above embodiment, and FIG. 4 is a schematic plan view, FIG. 5 is a schematic side view, FIG. 6 is a graph showing an example of the rise characteristics of the linear light source used in the above embodiment, and FIG. 7 is the output of the comparator in the roller braking control system shown in FIG. 1. FIG. 8 is a block diagram showing the image signal processing system of the above embodiment, FIG. 9 is a time chart showing the operation of the image signal processing system, and FIG. 10 is the image input device of the above embodiment. 3 is a graph showing the compression ratio of an image with respect to the scanning speed of FIG. 21... Linear light source, 22... Light receiving element, 25...
... Line sensor, 27 ... Roller, 41 ... Braking member, 43 ... Solenoid, 44 ... Spring, 45
... Comparator, 46 ... Solenoid drive circuit, 100 ... Image input device.

Claims (1)

[Scope of Claim for Utility Model Registration] A linear light source that illuminates the surface of the document through an opening provided in the housing, and a document that receives return light from the surface of the document irradiated by the linear light source. A line sensor that reads image information, a running roller that rotates in accordance with the running motion of scanning the document surface, and a position detection means that generates a position detection signal based on the rotation of this running roller are housed in the housing. Then,
A manual scanning type image input device that reads image information of a document by controlling the operation of the line sensor based on an output signal from the position detection means generated by manually scanning the casing. , a light-receiving element that receives a portion of the light emitted from the linear light source; a braking means that applies braking to the traveling roller; and electricity that controls the operation of the braking means in accordance with the output from the light-receiving element. - mechanical conversion means, driving the electro-mechanical conversion means when the detection output from the light receiving element becomes an output indicating that the light from the linear light source has reached a predetermined brightness; A manual scanning type image input device configured to release the braking action of the braking means on the traveling roller.