JPH05207245A - Portable optical reader - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To facilitate the reading of an original and to improve the portable performance by providing an optical read window on two side faces and providing a means reading optically picture information from the window in a case. CONSTITUTION:An optical read window 2 is provided on an upper face and a lower face of a case 1 of almost a wedge form as a whole and a means reading optically picture information from the window 2 is provided in the case 1. In the case of reading a book original 102, the page is opened and the case 1 is inserted between the pages and read switches 3-5 are operated to command the start. When an optical reader 100 is inserted to the book original 102 in this way, the page face to be read is in close contact with the read window 2 including a filed point in the middle. Thus, it is not required to open the original up to 180 deg. different from a device to read the original placed on the original platen, no damage is given to the book original and its middle part is surely read. Furthermore, in the case of reading a single original, the read window is placed opposite to the upper part of the original.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a portable optical reading device which optically scans and reads information written or printed on a paper surface.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventional optical readers are classified into the following three types. First of all, like facsimiles, sheets that are not bound and separated (single sheet)
To read information printed or printed on
A paper feeding mechanism takes in paper one by one and scans it with a one-dimensional photoelectric conversion element as the paper moves.
A single-cut original or booklet original placed on a platen like a copying machine and scanned by a photoelectric conversion device through the platen from below, and a scanner equipped with a one-dimensional photoelectric conversion element like a hand scanner. There is one that is designed to be manually scanned.

[0003]

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION In a device such as a facsimile machine, which scans data by taking in a single-cut sheet, the entire structure can be made relatively small, but a book manuscript such as a book or magazine can be produced. It cannot be read. Further, in a copy machine, such as one in which a document is placed on a document table and read, a wide space for accommodating the photoelectric conversion device and the scanning mechanism is required under the document table, and there is a limit to downsizing. is there. Moreover, in such an apparatus, when reading the booklet original, the booklet original must be opened 180 degrees and brought into close contact with the original table. In particular, in the case of a thick booklet document, there are problems that the vicinity of the center stitch is not sufficiently adhered to the document and the focus is deviated, and the document surface is inclined so that characters and the like are greatly distorted and unreadable. further,
With devices such as hand scanners, the width that can be read at one time is narrow, so it is necessary to scan several times when reading a wide range of originals, and it is extremely difficult to combine the image information that was captured later. It

An object of the present invention is to provide a portable optical reader which can accurately read information in page units regardless of whether it is a booklet original or a single-cut original, and is small in size and excellent in portability. is there.

[0005]

According to a first aspect of the present invention, there is provided a portable optical reading device which is provided with an optical reading window portion on at least one of an upper surface and a lower surface in a substantially wedge-shaped housing. An optical reading unit for optically reading image information from the window portion is provided.

A portable optical reading device according to a second aspect of the present invention is the portable optical reading device according to the first aspect, wherein an optical reading window portion is provided on each of the upper surface and the lower surface of the housing, and the optical reading means includes the optical reading window portion. A light receiving portion scanning means for scanning the light receiving portion along one of the two window portions, and the light receiving portion scanning means is rotated about the tip end portion of the wedge-shaped housing to form the two window portions. And a scanning unit rotating means for selectively moving along one of the windows.

[0007]

A portable optical reader according to claim 1 of the present invention is provided with a substantially wedge-shaped housing as a whole, and an optical reading window is provided on at least one of the upper surface and the lower surface of the housing. Is provided with an optical reading unit that optically reads image information from the window.

Therefore, when a booklet original is read using this portable optical reading device, the page to be read of the booklet original is opened, the wedge-shaped housing is inserted, and a reading start instruction is given by a key operation or the like. In this way, when the portable optical reading device is inserted in the booklet original, the page surface of the booklet original to be read comes into close contact with the optical reading window portion including the vicinity of the central closed eye. Therefore, it is not necessary to spread the booklet original to 180 degrees as in a reading device of a type that is placed on the original table and reads, and the central portion of the booklet original can be surely read without damaging the booklet original. .. Further, when reading a single-cut original, a reading device may be placed with an optical reading window facing the upper part of the original and a reading start instruction may be given.
Therefore, unlike a reading device such as a hand scanner, it is not necessary to manually scan the scanner, and it is possible to read the entire page at once.

In the portable optical reading device according to the second aspect,
Optical reading windows are provided on the upper and lower sides of the substantially wedge-shaped housing, respectively, and the light receiving section scanning means scans the light receiving section along one of the two window sections. The scanning unit pivoting unit pivots the light receiving unit scanning unit around the front end portion of the housing as a center, and selectively aligns it with any one of the window portions. Therefore, it is possible to selectively or sequentially read either one of the two pages sandwiching the portable optical reading device while sandwiching the portable optical reading device in the booklet document.

[0010]

FIG. 2 shows the appearance of a portable optical reading device according to an embodiment of the present invention. The housing of the device is composed of an outer frame 1 and two transparent plates (glass plates) 2 combined in a wedge shape.

The outer frame 1 has three push button switches 3,
4 and 5 are provided. The switch 3 is a switch for instructing the reading of upper and lower two pages, and the switches 4 and 5 are switches for instructing the reading of each one of the upper page and the lower page. Further, the outer frame 1 is provided with an optical transceiver module or a wireless transceiver module 6 for transmitting the read information to other devices in a cordless manner.

FIG. 1 is a view showing a usage state in which a booklet original is read by using the portable optical reading device shown in FIG. In FIG. 1, 102 is a booklet document, 100 is a portable optical reading device inserted in a predetermined page of the booklet document 102, and 101 is a reading information processing device for receiving reading information of the reading device 100. When reading a booklet original, for example, a predetermined page of the booklet original 102 is opened with the left hand, the outer frame 1 of the portable optical reading device 100 is held with the right hand, and the booklet original 102 is closed with the left hand. After that, by operating any of the three reading instruction switches 3 to 5, the photoelectric conversion unit provided between two transparent plates described later starts scanning, and the obtained image information is transmitted via the transmission module 6. It is transmitted to the transmission module 7 of the read information processing apparatus 101 (the light receiving unit in the case of optical transmission). The read information processing apparatus 101 performs predetermined data processing such as character recognition on the received image information or stores it in the storage device as it is and uses it as a database. When the portable optical reading device 100 has a character recognizing means inside, the character code transmitted from the transmission module 6 is received by the transmission module 7, and the character code is stored and used as it is.

Next, the internal construction of the portable optical reader is shown in FIGS.

FIG. 3 is a sectional view of the portable optical reader, FIG.
FIG. 3 is a plan view showing the internal structure of the device. In both figures, the photoelectric conversion unit 10 and a guide 1 for moving the photoelectric conversion unit 10 into a wedge-shaped space surrounded by an outer frame 1 and two transparent plates 2 and 2.
1, 11 and the driving motor 21 are housed. The photoelectric conversion unit 10 scans the paper surface in the left-right direction in the drawing by moving along the guides 11, 11. The vertical direction in the figure is scanned by the one-dimensional semiconductor image sensor (for example, CCD line sensor) 16, 16 of the photoelectric conversion unit. The guides 11, 11 are supported by movable shafts 15, 15 at one end of the support rods 12, 12. Support bars 12, 12
The other end of the guide 11 is pivotally supported by the support shaft 13, and the other ends of the guides 11, 11 are pivotally supported by the support shafts 14, 14. Therefore, when the support rods 12 and 12 rotate about the support shaft 13, the guides 11 and 11 rotate as shown by the broken lines and solid lines in FIG. When the tips of the supporting rods 12 and 12 are located below, the guides 11 and 11 are in a position parallel to the lower transparent plate 2, and the photoelectric conversion unit 10 can scan the lower page. On the other hand, when the tip of the support rod 12 is in the upper position, the guides 11 and 11 are in the position parallel to the upper transparent plate 2, and the photoelectric conversion unit 10 can scan the upper page. In FIG. 4, reference numeral 28 denotes a support shaft rotating portion that supports the support shaft 13 and rotates it by a certain angle to rotate the guides 11 and 11 as shown by the broken lines and solid lines in FIG.

The photoelectric conversion section 10 is composed of one-dimensional semiconductor image sensors 16, 16, lens systems 17, 17, a reflecting mirror 18 and illumination lamps 19, 19. Here, the depth dimension of the photoelectric conversion unit 10 is reduced by using two sets each of the one-dimensional semiconductor image sensor 16 and the lens system 17, but a single one-dimensional semiconductor image sensor is used by using the wide-angle lens system. Can also be used. Two one-dimensional semiconductor image sensors 16, 16
Is connected to the circuit board 27 via the flexible cable 20.

5 and 6 show a state in which the photoelectric conversion unit 10 scans along the transparent plate 2, FIG. 5 shows a state in which the photoelectric conversion unit 10 scans along the upper transparent plate 2, and FIG. The photoelectric conversion unit 10 is in a state of scanning along the lower transparent plate 2. In any case, the illumination light emitted from the illumination lamps 19, 19 is reflected by the original 102 through the transparent plate 2.

The reflected light is reflected by the reflecting mirror 18, guided to the lens system 17, and combined with the one-dimensional semiconductor image sensor 16 as an original image. The output signal from the one-dimensional semiconductor image sensor 16 is converted into a digital circuit. As shown in both figures, the angle of the reflecting mirror 18 and the positions of the two illumination lamps 19 and 19 are different between the state where the photoelectric conversion unit 10 is arranged along the upper transparent plate 2 and the state where the photoelectric conversion unit 10 is arranged along the lower transparent plate 2. Is different. That is, as shown in FIG. 5, when the photoelectric conversion unit 10 moves along the upper transparent plate 2 and the guide 11 rotates along the lower transparent plate 2 as shown in FIG. In conjunction with, the reflecting mirror 18 and the illumination lamps 19 and 19 integrally rotate about 60 degrees counterclockwise in the figure. Both sides of the reflecting mirror 18 are reflecting surfaces, and different surfaces are used in the state shown in FIG. 5 and the state shown in FIG.

FIG. 7 is a partial plan view showing the structure of a drive system for scanning the photoelectric conversion section 10 by the motor 21 shown in FIG. In FIG. 7, 21 is an ultra-thin motor, 2
2, 23 and 24 are pulleys, and 25 is a wire wound around these pulleys and the pulley of the motor 21. Both ends of the wire 25 are fixed to predetermined portions 26, 26 of the photoelectric conversion unit 10. With this configuration,
The rotation of the motor 21 causes the photoelectric conversion unit 10 to move to the guide 1
It is possible to move in the left-right direction in FIG.

Next, FIG. 8 and FIG. 9 show different structural examples of the drive system of the photoelectric conversion section.

FIG. 8 is a plan view showing the internal structure of the portable optical reader, in which 21 is a motor and 30 to 36 are pulleys. Other photoelectric conversion unit 10 and guide 1
The configuration such as 1 is the same as that shown in FIG.

FIG. 9 is a plan view showing the configuration of the drive system of the photoelectric conversion unit 10 in the portable optical reading device shown in FIG. In FIG. 9, 37 and 38 are wires, and one end of the wire 37 is fixed to the wire fixing portion 39 of the photoelectric conversion unit 10, and the other end is passed through 30 → 21 → 31 → 33 → 35 and the other end is the photoelectric conversion unit. It is fixed to the wire fixing portion 40 of 10. Further, one end of the wire 38 is fixed to the wire fixing part 41 of the photoelectric conversion part 10, and the other end is fixed to the wire fixing part 42 of the photoelectric conversion part 10 via the pulleys 32 → 34 → 36. With this configuration, the motor 2
1 rotation causes the photoelectric conversion unit 10 to move into the two guides 1.
Both ends in the vicinity of 1 and 11 receive equal tension in the left-right direction in the figure and are driven smoothly.

Next, FIG. 10 is a block diagram showing the configuration of the control unit of the portable optical reading device. CPU in FIG.
Reference numeral 50 controls each unit by executing a program written in advance in the ROM 51. The RAM 52 is used as a working area for temporary storage of read information and data processing. CCD controllers 53, 53 are CCD line sensors 16, 1 which are one-dimensional semiconductor image sensors.
6 is controlled to read one-dimensional image data and convert it into digital data. The CPU 50 reads the read data via the interface 54, and the RAM 5
Sequentially stored in 2. The lamp controller 55 controls driving of the illumination lamps 19, 19. The CPU 50 sends the illumination lamp 1 through the interface 56 at a necessary timing.
Lighting / extinction control of 9 and 19 is performed. The motor controller 57 gives a drive pulse to the stepping motor 21. The CPU 50 rotates the motor 21 forward or backward by a predetermined rotation angle via the interface 58. The controller 59 drives and controls the support shaft rotating unit 28. CPU50
Controls the support shaft rotating portion 28 via the interface 60 to rotate the guide 11. The transmission circuit 62 is a RAM
The infrared LED 63 transmits the image information temporarily stored in 52 or the result of performing predetermined data processing. CPU
50 sequentially outputs data to be transmitted to the transmission circuit 62 via the interface 61. The switch 65 is shown in FIG.
And the reading instruction switch shown in FIG.
The U50 reads the operation content of the switch 65 via the interface 64. If the read instruction switch 4 is operated, first, as shown by the broken line in FIG.
The guide 11 is rotated so as to follow the transparent plate 2 on the upper side, and then the photoelectric conversion unit 10 is scanned and read. If the read instruction switch 5 is operated, scanning is performed in a state where the photoelectric conversion unit 10 is arranged along the lower transparent plate 2 side as shown by the solid line in FIG. Further, when the read instruction switch 3 is operated, the upper page is read first, and then the guide 11 is rotated to read the lower page.

[0023]

The portable optical reading device according to the first aspect of the present invention has the following effects.

(1) Since the entire device has a wedge shape and a thin shape similar to a book original such as a book, it is extremely portable. For example, it can be easily stored in a bag and can be stored together with a book in a bookcase or book stand.

(2) Since the booklet original can be read by sandwiching it in a predetermined page of the booklet original, it is possible to reliably read the vicinity of the binding margin of the booklet original without floating from the reading unit. Also, it does not damage the booklet manuscript.

(3) Even for a single-cut original other than the book original, place the portable optical reading device on the original or place the original in the optical reading window of the portable optical reading device. It can be easily read by placing it.

Further, in the portable optical reading device according to the second aspect, since it is possible to read the two-page spread as it is by inserting it into a predetermined page of the booklet document, it is extremely possible to read a plurality of pages. Workability is enhanced.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a perspective view showing a usage state of a portable optical reading device according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is an external perspective view of a portable optical reading device according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 3 is a sectional view of the portable optical reading device.

FIG. 4 is a plan view showing an internal structure of the portable optical reading device.

FIG. 5 is a diagram showing a scanning state of an optical conversion unit.

FIG. 6 is a diagram showing a scanning state of an optical conversion unit.

FIG. 7 is a diagram showing a configuration of a drive system of an optical conversion unit.

FIG. 8 is a plan view showing an internal structure of a portable optical reading device according to a second embodiment.

FIG. 9 is a diagram showing a configuration of a drive system of an optical conversion unit in a portable optical reading device according to a second example.

FIG. 10 is a block diagram showing a configuration of a control unit of the portable optical reading device.

[Explanation of symbols]

1-Outer frame 2-Transparent plate 3-5-Read instruction switch 6,7-Transmission module 10-Photoelectric conversion unit 11-Guide 12-Support rod 13-Support shaft 14-Support shaft 15-Movable shaft 16-One-dimensional semiconductor Image sensor (CCD line sensor) 17-Lens system 18-Reflecting mirror 19-Illumination lamp 20-Flexible cable 21-Motor 22-24-Pulley 25-Wire 26-Wire fixing part 28-Support shaft rotating part 30-36- Pulleys 37, 38-Wires 39 to 42-Wire fixing portion 100-Portable optical reader 101-Read information processor 102-Booklet original

Claims (2)

[Claims] 1. An optical reading means for optically reading image information from the window is provided in a generally wedge-shaped housing having an optical reading window on at least one of the upper surface and the lower surface. A portable optical reading device characterized by: 2. An optical reading window portion is provided on each of the upper surface and the lower surface of the housing, and the optical reading means scans the light receiving portion along one of the two window portions. A light-receiving-portion scanning means for rotating the light-receiving-portion scanning means around the tip portion of the wedge-shaped housing, and selectively scanning the light-receiving-portion scanning means along one of the two window portions. The portable optical reading device according to claim 1, further comprising a moving means.