Curved document imaging with eye scanner

In conventional document imaging by a copying machine, the item to be copied must be held flat at a specified position. In addition, distortion or blurring can be produced when an object with three-dimensional undulations is imaged. Consequently, we developed a next-generation document imaging device (Eye Scanner) which can image characters or photographs on a curved sheet from an arbitrary viewpoint, without contact and without distortion, by utilizing shape information. This paper gives an outline of the Eye Scanner device and proposes a method of eliminating texture distortion of a curved object imaged from an arbitrary viewpoint. A divided imaging and connection method by using a pan-tilt stage is presented. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Syst Comp Jpn, 35(9): 20–29, 2004; Published online in Wiley InterScience (). DOI 10.1002sscj.10558