Patent ID: 7770803
Filing Date: 2010-08-10
Classification: G06F,G06K

Abstract:
1. A code pattern image scanning apparatus for reproducing position-dependent information and position-independent information from a scanned image, by a localized scan of a code pattern image, the code pattern image being formed by a plurality of unit patterns having identical size and shape, each unit pattern being formed by only first and second regions, the first region, which is a single region disposed in a unit pattern, being occupied by bit images forming the position-dependent code image such that all bit images forming the position-dependent code image are disposed in the first region, the first region excluding bit images forming the position-independent code image, the second region, which is an entire remaining region of the unit pattern, being occupied by bit images forming the position-independent code image, the code pattern image scanning apparatus comprising: a scanner that scans a scanning region to generate a scanned image, the scanning region including a fragment of position-independent code image from each second region located in four unit patterns and one position-dependent code image located in a first region of one of the four unit patterns, two of the four unit patterns being adjacent in a vertical direction and two of the four unit patterns being adjacent in a horizontal direction; a position-dependent information detecting section that detects the position-dependent code image from the scanned image and decodes the position-dependent information from the position-dependent code image; a position-independent code image reconstruction section that reconstructs the position-independent code image by extracting the fragments of the position-independent code image from the scanned image, each extracted fragment of the position-independent code image corresponding to a second region located in the four unit patterns of the scanning region, and combining the extracted fragments according to the positional relationship between unit patterns; and a position-independent information decoding section that decodes position-independent information from the reconstructed position-independent code image.