KR20090132238A - Pen-shaped scanner - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE: A pen scanner is provided to move a pen while putting a tip below a column to be scanned, thereby easily obtaining an image of a desired part of a document or a book. CONSTITUTION: A pointed tip(110) moves while being put on a scan target object. A light receiving element(122) photographs a surface of the scan target object around the tip. A controller(132) controls operation of the light receiving element. The controller processes an image photographed by the light receiving element. By movement to a side of a pen scanner(100), plural images are photographed. Two images are bonded together at the corresponding position. By deletion of an overlapped part, one roughly-oblong image is obtained.

Description

Pen Scanner {PEN-SHAPED SCANNER}

The present invention relates to a scanner, and more particularly, to a pen-shaped scanner that can scan a portion of a document or book line by line.

Scanners for capturing images of text or figures printed on the ground have been developed in various forms. The most common type is a stationary type that is placed on a table and scans the surface of an object to be scanned using a line light receiving element moving along an image plane.

On the other hand, digital pens or pen mice have been developed. Digital pens and pen mice both use light-receiving elements used in optical mice, a type of pointing device for computers. The light receiving element for an optical mouse typically distinguishes only the contrast of each pixel within 8x8 pixels. In other words, a digital pen or pen mouse is a device for detecting relative movement with respect to the ground from the movement of the intensity of each pixel within 8x8 pixels, and the ability to capture an image of a size large enough to be visually discernible is none.

There is a need for a small and simple scanner that can efficiently capture images of one or two rows of ground. There is a need for a scanner capable of easily obtaining the desired image by precisely targeting the portion to be scanned.

In order to solve the above problems, there is provided a scanner for obtaining an image of the object to be scanned, such as books or documents. Preferably this scanner is formed as a pen scanner. As used herein, the term "pen scanner" refers to a scanner that is thin and formed in a way that can be held and used in a pen grip manner.

The scanner according to the present invention has a pointed tip configured to move relative to the object to be scanned, a light receiving element configured to image the surface of the object to be scanned near the tip, and an image of the light receiving element which controls the operation of the light receiving element. It includes a controller configured to process the rendered image. Herein, "processing" refers to storing an image signal in memory, transmitting it to another machine or storage device over a communication network, or extracting derived information, such as text, in an optical character recognition (OCR) manner from an image. It is a generic term for various tasks.

Preferably, the tip may comprise a ball in cloud contact with the ground.

Preferably, the light receiving element is an area receiving element, and the scanner may further include a lens configured to inject light reflected from the surface of the object to be scanned into the area receiving element to form an image.

Preferably, the light receiving element is a line light receiving element, and the scanner may further include movement detecting means for detecting a moving direction and a speed of the scanner.

Preferably, the method may further include a pressure sensing switch operated by the pressure applied to the tip when the tip is placed on the object to be scanned.

Preferably, it may further include a light source for illuminating the object to be scanned.

Preferably, it may further include a microphone for inputting an external sound.

Preferably, it may further include a speaker for outputting sound to the outside.

Using such a scanner, it is possible to easily obtain an image of a desired portion of a document or a book by moving the tip under the row to be scanned and underlining with a pen.

The scanner can be easily carried like a pen.

The scanner is equipped with a microphone and a speaker, which enables a variety of computations to interconvert or correlate text printed on a document or book, externally input or voice, and sounds to be output. .

These and other objects, features and advantages of the present invention will become apparent from the following description of the embodiments with reference to the accompanying drawings.

1 is a view schematically showing the appearance of a pen scanner 100 according to a preferred embodiment of the present invention.

The pen scanner 100 according to the preferred embodiment of the present invention is formed to be thin and long so as to be conveniently held and used in one hand with a pen grip method.

The tip of the pen scanner 100 is formed with a pen nib 110 that can move against the ground. The nib 110 may be formed only in the form of a pointed tip, or may be formed of a ball nib for minimizing friction with the ground. The nib 110 may be a regular nib or ball nib that deposits ink on the ground, or may be a dummy nib for targeting only the locations where the pen scanner 100 will scan.

Inside the pen scanner 100 near the nib 110, a light receiving element to be described in more detail in each embodiment is disposed below. The nib 110 facilitates moving the scanner 100 along a desired position on the ground while maintaining a substantially constant distance between the light receiving element 122 and the ground.

In the illustrated embodiment, although the microphone 154 and the speaker 152 are shown disposed near the rear end of the pen scanner 100, the pen scanner 100 according to the present invention is such a microphone 154 and the speaker 152. ) Is not limited by the configuration provided.

2 is a diagram schematically showing the internal components of the pen scanner 100 according to the first embodiment of the present invention.

As shown in FIG. 2, the pen scanner 100 according to the first embodiment of the present invention includes an area light receiving element 122. The area light receiving element 122 is composed of an image sensor such as a charge-coupled device (CCD) or a complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS). The area light receiving element 122 is typically a light receiving element in which a plurality of pixels (or light receiving elements) are arranged to form a rectangle having a predetermined aspect ratio, and the image of the subject in the rectangular field of view formed through the lens 124 in a stationary state is displayed. Take a picture. It may also include an illumination light source 126 that illuminates the ground to be scanned to obtain a better image.

3 illustrates an image capturing area of the area light receiving element 122 that meets the ground when the pen scanner 100 according to the first embodiment shown in FIG. 2 is held in a hand in a writing position and the nib 110 is put on the ground. The field of view 320 is shown. Although the field of view 320 of the area light receiving element 122 is preferably formed directly above the contact point 310 of the nib 110 with respect to the ground as shown in FIG. 3, the configuration of the present invention is such a field of view 320. It is not limited by location. As shown in FIGS. 3A to 3E, the field of view 320 of the area light receiving device 122 may be formed at various positions such as the upper left, upper right, left, right, and bottom of the contact point 310 of the nib 110.

The pen scanner 100 according to the present invention is for scanning an image of a long rectangular area having a width corresponding to one or more rows of a document or a book. Although the vertical length of the field of view 320 of the area light receiving element 122 shown in FIG. 3 or FIGS. 3A to 3E corresponds to the width of the area to be scanned, the horizontal length is one tenth of the length of the area to be scanned. It is only.

In the pen scanner 100 according to the first embodiment of the present invention shown in FIG. 2, the scan area is extended using an image stitching technique. In other words, by photographing a plurality of images while moving the pen scanner 100 to the side, by comparing the vertical pixel arrangement of the adjacent images to join the two images at the corresponding position, by deleting the overlapping portion One elongated approximately rectangular image is obtained.

4 illustrates an example image obtained by capturing an image of a book using a pen scanner 100 configured as illustrated in FIG. 2, and then bonding the same by using the image stitching technique described above. The jagged edges in the transverse direction in the image of FIG. 4 indicate that a plurality of images are obtained by joining by image stitching techniques.

The pen tip 110 makes it easy to move the pen scanner along an area to be scanned by the user in the process of capturing an image while moving the pen scanner 100 sideways. That is, in the pen scanner 100 in which the field of view 320 of the area light receiving element 122 is disposed above the pen tip, as shown in FIG. 3, the user holds the pen scanner 100 and the left end of the row to scan the pen tip. At the bottom, an elongated approximately rectangular image as shown in FIG. 4 can be obtained by moving to the right underlined the row to be scanned. In scanning a row of books, approximately 100 images are captured and stitched.

5 is a diagram schematically showing the internal components of the pen scanner 200 according to the second embodiment of the present invention.

As shown in FIG. 5, the pen scanner 200 according to the second embodiment of the present invention includes a line light receiving element 222. The line light receiving element 222 is configured of, for example, an image sensor such as a charge-coupled device (CCD) or a complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS). The line light receiving element 222 is a light receiving element in which a plurality of pixels (or light receiving elements) are arranged in a straight line having a predetermined length. The line width of the line light receiving element 222 may correspond to one pixel or two or more pixels, but the width thereof is very small compared to the horizontal length of the area light receiving element 122. That is, the terms "line light receiving element" and "area light receiving element" in the terms of the line and area should be understood as a relative concept according to the difference in the length of the horizontal direction, the line light receiving element 222 is arranged in a line This is because the present invention is not limited thereto but may be arranged in two or more rows, but is arranged in a much smaller number of rows than the area light receiving element 122. The line light receiving element 222 typically does not arrange a lens between the subject and the light receiving element, and receives only light incident from the subject at a predetermined angle (typically right angle) from the subject. It may be provided with a light source (not shown) that illuminates the ground to obtain a better image in the line light receiving element 222.

The image detected by the pen scanner 200 according to the second embodiment of the present invention in FIG. 5 in a stationary state is a linear image 420 of a subject as shown in FIG. 6.

FIG. 6 illustrates that the line light receiving element 222 has a nib 210 against the ground when the pen scanner 200 according to the second embodiment shown in FIG. 5 is held in a hand with the pen nib 210 held on the ground. Illustrating sensing an image 420 of a straight portion of the ground on the left side of the contact 410. The position of the ground on which the linear image 420 is sensed by the line light receiving element 222 is arranged in various ways such as left, right, and top of the contact point 410 of the nib 210 as shown in FIGS. 6A to 6F. Could be.

In the pen scanner 200 according to the second exemplary embodiment of the present invention illustrated in FIG. 5, the pen scanner 200 continuously detects the straight image 420 as the pen scanner 200 moves sideways, and continuously detects the detected image 420. By joining, we get an elongated image. In the pen scanner 200 according to the second embodiment of the present invention using the line light receiving element 222, an image stitching technique is typically not used, and accurately detects the movement of the pen scanner 200, and displays one image. As soon as the sensor deviates from the detected position, a technique of causing the line light receiving element 222 to sense another image is used. In a conventional desk-mounted flatbed scanner or the like, a mechanical moving speed control or movement detecting means such as a stepping motor is used. In the pen scanner 200 according to the present invention, for example, an optical or electronic movement sensing means may be used. For example, as shown in FIG. 5, the pen scanner 200 according to the second embodiment of the present invention may detect a movement of the pen scanner in addition to the line light receiving element 222 which is an image sensing light receiving element. The light receiving element 242 and the light source 244 may be further provided. The movement detecting light receiving element 242 may use a light receiving element used in an ordinary optical mouse, in which case the movement sensing may be performed in the same manner as detecting a movement in an ordinary optical mouse. Techniques for detecting movement in optical mice are well known to those skilled in the art and will not be described further herein.

According to the second exemplary embodiment, the pen scanner 200 using the line light receiving element 222 may obtain a distortion-free image due to the characteristics of the line light receiving element that detects an image by receiving only light incident at a right angle without a lens. That is, since the pen scanner 100 using the area light receiving element 122 according to the first embodiment receives the light incident through the lens 124 to capture an image, the pen scanner 100 receives the image due to various aberrations such as lens aberration or chromatic aberration. Some distortion may occur. However, if the pen scanner 200 according to the second embodiment is moved too fast, the line light receiving device 222 may not detect the image and may miss it, and therefore, the pen scanner 200 may be moved slowly at an almost constant speed. That is, the pen scanner 200 according to the second embodiment using the line light receiving element 222 has no distortion compared to the pen scanner 100 according to the first embodiment using the area light receiving element 122 within a predetermined scan speed. Although accurate images can be obtained, typically, the maximum scan speed that can be implemented is slower than the scan speed that can be implemented in the pen scanner 100 according to the first embodiment.

In the pen scanners 100 and 200 according to the first and second embodiments, the controllers 132 and 232 control the operation of various components such as the light receiving elements 122 and 222, and the light receiving elements 122 and 222. It serves to process the image acquired by. The processing of the images involves the image stitching described above or the continuous joining of the straight images. The processing of the image may also include extracting the character from the acquired image in an optical character recognition (OCR) manner. For example, the extracted text may be converted into voice information using a text-to-speech (TTS) module and output through the speakers 152 and 252. In addition, the extracted text may be used as a file name or index word of voice information input and stored through the microphones 154 and 254. Also, the extracted text may be used as a search word for searching for various information.

Although not shown, the pen scanner 100 may include a display device such as a liquid crystal display (LCD). In addition, although not shown, the pen scanners 100 and 200 may be wired and / or wireless communication ports or communication modules 136 and 236 that may be connected to other machines on various communication networks such as intranets, the Internet, wired and wireless telephone networks, and the like. It may be provided. The communication port or communication module 136, 236 may be configured using a suitable communication protocol such as Universal Serial Bus (USB), Ultra-wideband (UWB), Zigbee, Bluetooth, and the like. It may also be configured to connect directly as a subscriber.

If the pen scanner 100 is configured to be able to connect with other machines on a network, at least some of the various operations relating to image processing and character extraction and use of the extracted characters described above may be distributed on at least one machine. Could be

The controllers 136 and 236 may be simple controllers that control the operation of the light receiving elements 122 and 222, the microphones 154 and 254 and / or the speakers 152 and 252, and the image processing and character extraction and extraction described above. It may also be a programmable logic controller (PLC) or a central processing unit (CPU) that handles at least some of the various operations related to the use of these characters.

In addition, the pen scanners 100 and 200 may include power sources 138 and 238 such as, for example, rechargeable batteries, and may include memories 134 and 234.

In addition, the pen scanners 100 and 200 may include pressure-sensitive switches 112 and 212 that operate by pressure applied to the nibs 110 and 210 when the nibs 110 and 210 are held on the ground. When the pressure-sensitive switches 112 and 212 are turned on, the illumination is turned on, and the light receiving element 122 acquires an image of scanning the ground. When the pressure-sensitive switches 112 and 212 are turned off, the lights are turned on. This could be configured to turn off.

While the invention has been described in connection with specific embodiments, it is merely illustrative to assist in understanding the purpose, features, and advantages of the invention, and for those of ordinary skill in the art, Changes or variations from the illustrated embodiments will be readily apparent without departing from the scope of protection of the invention and the spirit of the invention described in the scope. It is to be understood that the scope of the claims is to cover such changes or modifications.

1 is a view schematically showing the appearance of a pen scanner according to a preferred embodiment of the present invention.

2 is a cross-sectional view schematically showing the internal components of the pen scanner according to the first embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 3 shows an imaging area of the pen scanner according to the first embodiment of this invention shown in FIG. 2.

3A to 3E show exemplary positions of change of the imaging area of the pen scanner shown in FIG.

4 shows an exemplary scan image obtained using a pen scanner according to the first embodiment of the present invention shown in FIG. 2.

5 is a cross-sectional view schematically showing the internal components of the pen scanner according to the second embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 6 shows an imaging area of the pen scanner according to the second embodiment of this invention shown in FIG. 5.

6A to 6F show example positions of change of the imaging area of the pen scanner shown in FIG.

Claims (8)

A scanner for acquiring an image of an object to be scanned, A pointed tip configured to move against the object being scanned, A light receiving element configured to image a surface of a scan object near the tip; And a controller configured to control operation of the light receiving element and to process an image captured by the light receiving element. The method according to claim 1, And the ball comprises a ball in cloud contact with the ground. The method according to claim 1, The light receiving element is an area light receiving element, The scanner further comprises a lens configured to inject light reflected from the surface of the object to be scanned into the area receiving element to form an image. The method according to claim 1, The light receiving element is a line light receiving element, The scanner further comprises a movement detecting means for detecting the moving direction and the speed of the scanner. The method according to claim 1, And a pressure sensing switch actuated by the pressure applied to the tip when the tip is placed on the object to be scanned. The method according to claim 1, The scanner further comprises a light source for illuminating the object to be scanned. The method according to claim 1, The scanner further includes a microphone for inputting external sound. The method according to claim 1, The scanner further comprises a speaker for outputting sound to the outside.

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