Patent ID: 6219438
Filing Date: 2001-04-17
Classification: G06K

Abstract:
An identification system for classifying an image defined by data stored in a computer memory and having respective physical surface properties, said system including:an optical scanner responsive to said computer, a window exposed to the environment through which a beam of light projects on to a surface of an object to be scanned, said scanner directing said beam oflight over said surface and receiving light reflected from said surface, said reflected light being converted by said scanner to a data signal representative of said surface, said scanner further including:a detector which determines scattered light data for said window by acquiring at least one scan of said window in the absence of said object to be scanned; anda conditioner which conditions said data signal representative of said object surface based on recording 3 or more levels of brightness for said window scan to compensate for said scattered light data;a wavelet processor receiving the data signal from said optical scanner and extracting a feature vector signal therefrom that includes a plurality of vector components having respective coefficients corresponding to at least one physical property representative ofsaid surface; anda comparator receiving the extracted feature vector signal from said wavelet processor, said comparator comparing said extracted feature vector signal with a set of predetermined feature vector signals stored in said memory and representing a plurality of object types, said comparator determining whether said object has a surface similar to the surface represented by any one of the predetermined vector signals included in said set based on the comparison.