Patent ID: 8146821

Claim:
A bar code reader for reading bar codes comprising: a housing including two or more transparent windows and defining a housing interior region so that a target object swiped or presented in relation to the transparent windows can be evaluated for a presence of a bar code; a plurality of cameras supported within the interior region of the housing, each camera having both an image capture sensor array for capturing an image of a bar code within an associated camera field of view and a light source for illuminating said field of view associated with said camera; and a processing system coupled to the plurality of cameras for decoding a bar code carried by the target object from images captured by the plurality of cameras, said processor sequentially activating the light source of each given camera selected from the plurality of cameras in synchronism with activating an exposure by the image capture sensor array of the each given camera to allocate different time segments within an image frame period to different cameras amongst the plurality of cameras and a processing system coupled to light sensors monitoring the field of view of each of the plurality of cameras and wherein the processing system is operable to automatically adjust an exposure time of the cameras based on window transmissivity obtained via the bar code reader reading a bar code label attached thereto.