Development of the next-generation document reader: Eye Scanner

Up to now a copying machine requires setting the document to the copy glass of the designated position. In addition to that, the copying machine of the present cannot copy the non-flat shape document (e.g. books, cylindrical objects, etc.) clearly. Besides, it cannot copy without distortion. So, we propose a next generation's document reader 'Eye Scanner.' The Eye Scanner is composed of the range finder, digital camera and pan-tilt stage system. Due to these devices the Eye Scanner is possible shape information and high-density texture image acquisition. Therefore the Eye Scanner is able to read the document by the free viewpoint and able to generate the image which is not distorted by the geometric conversion. Moreover, the Eye Scanner has the ability for high-resolution image generation by the digital camera, which placed on the optical coaxial position by the half-mirror. In this paper, we explain about the detail of the system. At the explanation of the methodology we explain the methodology about distortion correction by the free form transformation with shape information and explain about the technique of image merging. At the experiment, we show some result of distortion correction and show the result of image merging.© (2002) COPYRIGHT SPIE--The International Society for Optical Engineering. Downloading of the abstract is permitted for personal use only.