Patent ID: 7228428

Claim:
An apparatus for creating a tamper-proof document, comprising: an encoder configured to digitally encode a user-inputted portion of the document as encoded information; a placement selector configured to select a location on the tamper-proof document to place the encoded information; an access selector configured to select a level of access for the encoded information; a processor configured to process, responsive to said access selector, the encoded information; a printer configured to print the tamper-proof document including the encoded information as a lattice image pattern area of glyph marks at the location; a disambiguation unit configured to determine an angular orientation of the lattice image pattern, the disambiguation unit comprising: a compositing mechanism configured to composite a subsample of the glyph marks in said lattice image pattern to a composite lattice image pattern; and a lattice-axis determination mechanism configured to determine a lattice axis for said lattice image pattern from a line fit through centroids of some of a plurality of composite glyphs in the composite lattice image pattern formed by the compositing mechanism; and a lens apparatus configured to produce a composite image of the document and image information decoded from the encoded information wherein the orientation of the image information responsive to the disambiguation unit.