Patent ID: 8645216

Claim:
An apparatus for enrolling a package on a receiving surface comprising: the receiving surface; at least one weight sensor in communication with the receiving surface which generates a weight signal indicative of the weight of the package; a video camera unit positioned to view the package, wherein the camera unit: generates a video signal indicative of an image of the package on the receiving surface; and a processor in communication with the at least one weight sensor and the one video camera unit, said processor comprising: a weight module which produces, in response to the weight signal, weight data indicative of the weight of the package; a dimension capture module which produces, in response to the video signal, dimension data indicative of the size of the package, wherein the dimension capture module comprises a tracking module which produces, in response to the video signal, tracking data indicative of the presence and location of the package on the receiving surface, wherein the tracking information comprises length and width dimension data indicative of the size of the package along two axes lying in a plane parallel to the receiving surface; and a recognition module which produces, in response to the video signal, character data indicative of one or more characters present on the package; wherein the video signal comprises a stream of two dimensional image frames.