Patent ID: 7388989

Claim:
A method for detecting a streak in a scanned image, comprising: providing a scan line of image data from the scanned image; determining a current profile of the provided scan line, wherein a profile comprises a plot of scanned gray level versus pixel location on the scan line; storing averages of scanned values from previous scan lines for each pixel location along a scan line to generate an average profile; wherein the average profile is determined by the profile specified by filtered average Sum[j]; Sum[ i ]=(1.0− r )*Sum[ i]+r *Gray[ i]; where Sum[i] is the filtered average at i-th pixel, Gray[i] is the j-th scan-line scan value at i-th pixel, r is a filter coefficient; evaluating the current profile for pulses; for any pulse shape detected in the current profile, comparing the current profile to the average profile; if the current profile is within a predetermined threshold value of the average profile, designating the current profile as a possible streak and recording its location; if a streak profile is repeated for each subsequent scan line of image data for the next N scan lines, a streak has been detected at the location.