Patent ID: 7523863
Filing Date: 2009-04-28
Classification: B82Y,G02B,G06K,H01S

Abstract:
1. A hand-supportable planar illumination and imaging (PLIIM) based device, comprising: a hand-supportable housing having a light transmission aperture; a support platform mounted within said hand-supportable housing; a linear image formation and detection (IFD) module mounted on said support platform, and having a linear array of image detection elements and also image formation optics having a field of view (FOV) projectable through said light transmission aperture and into an illumination and imaging field, definable external to said hand-supportable housing, and in which an object can be presented for illumination and imaging, and said FOV focusing a linear image of said object onto said linear array of image detection elements; and a plurality of planar illumination modules (PLIMs), arranged in a rectilinear manner and mounted on said support platform, along with said linear IFD module, and producing a planar illumination beam (PLIB) that is spatially aligned with respect to said FOV and arranged in a coplanar relationship with at least a portion of said FOV; wherein each said PLIM includes a visible light emitting diode (LED) and beam forming optics for producing said PLIB, where said beam forming optics includes a focusing lens and a beam planarizing lens; an image frame grabber for grabbing linear digital images formed and detected by said linear IFD module; an image data buffer for buffering said grabbed linear digital images; an image processor operably associated with said image data buffer, for processing said buffered images; and a camera controller for controlling operations within said hand-supportable PLIIM based device.