Optical scanner

An optical scanner consists of a plurality of linear scanning light sources, a plurality of scattering lens boards, a plurality of linear image capturing units and a plurality of converging lens boards. The linear scanning light sources and image capturing units are laid in a staggered fashion on a circuit board to form a plane about the size of the scanning object. The scattering lens boards scatter light for the light sources to project evenly on the scanning object. The converging lens boards converge image reflecting from the scanning object to facilitate the linear image capturing units to capture the object image.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENT This invention aims at providing an image capturing unit for optical scanner that mainly use a plurality of linear image capturing units which have same length as the scanning object to form a two dimensional scanning zone, and couple with suitable scanning light sources to enable the image capturing units scanning the scanning object directly without using reflection mirrors and lens set thereby to reduce the thickness of the optical scanner. Moreover, the two dimensional scanning zone has about same size of the scanning object thereby the optical scanner does not need a driving means, and can completely scan the entire flat document at once for reducing scanning time. More details will be elaborated by referring to the embodiment in the following: Referring to FIG. 4 , the optical scanner according to this invention includes a document holding board 40 made of a transparent material (such as glass or acrylic) which may hold a scanning object (such as a flat document 41 ) thereon. Below the document holding board 40 , there are a plurality of linear image capturing units 42 , a plurality of linear scanning light sources 43 , a plurality of scattering lens boards 44 , a plurality of converging lens boards 45 and a circuit board 46 . Referring to FIG. 5 , the linear image capturing units 42 may be CCD or CIS which have a length about the width of the flat document 41 . The linear scanning light sources 43 consist of a plurality of Light Emitting Diodes (LED) which also have a length about the width of the flat document 41 . The linear image capturing units 42 and linear scanning light sources 43 are laid in a staggered fashion on the circuit board 46 to form a two dimensional scanning zone which has about the size of the flat document 41 . Referring to FIG. 6 , the scattering lens boards 44 are located between the linear scanning light sources 43 and flat document 41 for scattering scanning light source and enabling the light source to project evenly on the corresponding flat document 41 . The converging lens boards 45 are located between the linear image capturing units 42 and flat document 41 for projecting the reflecting image of the flat document 41 to the linear image capturing units 42 for image reading. There will be image overlap at two adjacent image capturing units 42 . An accumulated averaging process may be adapted to obtain a better scanning image output. This is an art now commonly known, thus will be omitted herein. The scattering lens boards 44 and converging lens boards 45 are integrally formed and may be finished by CNC machining (as shown in FIG. 7 ). When the optical scanner of this invention is in use for scanning a document, the scanning zone formed by the linear image capturing units directly faces to the flat document for scanning. As the scanning zone has about the size of the flat document, the entire document can be scanned completely at once rather than like conventional technique which uses a driving means to drive the linear image capturing unit moving and reading one linear document image at a time, and has to read all the linear document images to complete reading of one page of document image data. Hence this invention does not need the driving means and can complete scanning of a document image very quickly. The linear image capturing unit of this invention has a length about the width of the scanning document, hence it can directly read the corresponding document image data without using the reflection mirrors and lens as the conventional technique does. It therefore provides a desired optical path which enables the document image formed at the linear image capturing units of a shorter length. Because of this invention does not have the reflection mirrors and lens set, the liner image capturing units may be disposed closer to the scanning object, and the optical scanner may be made with a smaller thickness. Moreover, because of no reflection mirrors and lens set, the image distortion and deviation resulting from document image transmitting among the reflecting mirrors and lens set can be avoided. As a result, the scanning image obtained through this invention is much better than the one got by the conventional technique. Furthermore, since the linear image capturing units of this invention may be located closer to the scanning document, a less expensive LED light source may be used to replace the more expensive cold cathode tube. Thus this invention can generate a better quality scanning effect at a lower cost. The optical scanner according to this invention may be designed for scanning a general A4 or A3 size flat document. In addition to the aforesaid advantages, it may equip other function like a commonly used scanner. The optical scanner of this invention may also be made in a size for scanning name cards. Coupling with memory and display devices, the scanner of this invention may become a digital name card binder. In the social gathering occasions with the name cards being exchanged among different parties, the optical scanner of this invention may be used to scan the receiving name cards and store in the memory, and may be used to display the inquired name card information. Utilization and carrying thus become more convenient, and the problem of losing name cards may also be avoided. While the preferred embodiment of the invention have been set forth for purpose of disclosure, modifications of the disclosed embodiment of the invention as well as other embodiments thereof may occur to those skilled in the art. Accordingly, the appended claims are intended to cover all embodiments which do not depart from the spirit and scope of the invention.