Patent ID: 6978054

Claim:
An image reading apparatus for reading an image borne on a support, comprising: an image reading section for reading the image in unit line data, which is composed of a predetermined number of lines of the image, for every predetermined time interval as said image reading section is moved on the support; an amount-of-movement detecting section for detecting an amount of relative movement of said image reading section with respect to the support; a transfer-data generating section for generating image data based on said unit line data upon detection of movement of said image reading section by said amount-of-movement detecting section, obtaining an amount of movement corresponding to said image data based on said amount of relative movement, of said image reading section, detected by said amount-of-movement detecting section, and generating transfer data composed of said obtained image data and said amount of movement, said transfer data including successive transfer data pieces; a data compressing section for intermittently thinning out at least one transfer data piece from said tansfer data pieces in said transfer data, adding said amount of movement, which is contained in said thinned-out transfer data piece, to said amount of movement, which is contained in one data piece of the remaining transfer data pieces, which have not been thinned out, and generating compressed data composed of said image data in said one data piece and said added amount of movement; and a data transferring section for transferring one of said transfer data, which has been generated by said transfer data generating section, and said compressed data, which has been generated by said data compressing section, to a destination.