Patent ID: 8146823

Claim:
A method, comprising: receiving a single trigger signal communicated from a triggering device in response to a location of a component in an automated identification system; capturing multiple images of at least a portion of a surface of the component in response to the trigger signal, the multiple images comprising a series of images including a first image and at least one subsequent image, wherein capturing the multiple images comprises capturing at least one of the multiple images via an external camera coupled to the automated identification system, and wherein capturing at least one of the multiple images via the external camera includes configuring the automated identification system to receive an input from the external camera via switching to the external camera in response to user-specified criteria that include an image-capture-quantity parameter; and processing the multiple images in a multi-core, multi-thread processor to identify and read a symbol code, if any, contained within at least one or a combination of two or more of the multiple images.