Patent ID: 8374398

Claim:
A method of assessing the production quality of an article of a mail item during transport of the article within a mailpiece sorter or a mail inserter, the method comprising steps of: capturing, by a linear array imaging sensor, full line scan data for the article as a face of the article is transported at a continuous production speed in near proximity to the linear array imaging sensor, the linear array imaging sensor having a resolution substantially equal to a plurality of photo sensors of the linear array imaging sensor, wherein each of the photo sensors employs a focusing lens of a curvature for enabling a 1:1 relationship between a given sensor element and a portion of the article to be scanned, and the linear array imaging sensor having a form factor that facilitates placement along the mechanical transport path substantially perpendicular to the direction of transport; illuminating the article with white light during the capturing of the full line scan data; constructing an image of at least a portion of the face of the article from the full line scan data captured by the linear array imaging sensor; and evaluating the image of the article during the transport of the article at continuous production speed to assess production quality of the article, wherein the image has sufficient resolution for at least optical character recognition (OCR) analysis.