Patent ID: 7624926

Claim:
A method of automatically reading code symbols on objects within the field of view of a hand-supportable digital-imaging based code symbol reader, said method comprising the steps of: (a) bringing said hand-supportable digital imaging-based code symbol reader in proximity with an object bearing a code symbol, wherein said hand-supportable digital imaging-based code symbol reader includes (i) a hand-supportable housing having a trigger switch for generating a trigger signal in response to manual actuation of said trigger switch by an operator, (ii) an area-type image sensing array with a field of view (FOV) for detecting a digital image of the object within said FOV, (iii) an automatic object presence detector for detecting the object within said FOV, (iv) a LED-based illumination subsystem with an LED illumination array for illuminating the object within said FOV, (v) an image cropping zone (ICZ) framing pattern generator for generating an ICZ framing pattern by forming a pattern of visible illumination which is substantially encompassed within said FOV, and (vi) a programmed image processor for processing one or more digital images of the detected object; (b) automatically detecting the presence of said object within said FOV using said automatic object presence detector; (c) in response to the automatic detection of the object in said FOV, automatically generating the ICZ framing pattern from said ICZ framing pattern generator and projecting said ICZ framing pattern within said FOV and onto said detected object; (d) visually aligning the code symbol on said detected object, within said ICZ framing pattern, for imaging the code symbol; (e) manually actuating said trigger switch when the code symbol on said object is aligned within said ICZ framing pattern, so as to cause said LED-based illumination array to generate and project a field of illumination into said FOV and onto said detected object and throughout said ICZ framing pattern; (f) while said ICZ framing pattern and said illumination pattern are being simultaneously projected onto said object, forming and detecting a digital image of the entire said FOV which embraces and encompasses said ICZ framing pattern and at least a portion of said detected object; (g) using said programmed image processor for automatically locating said ICZ framing pattern in said digital image of the entire said FOV, by tracing corner points or border lines that identify boundaries of said ICZ framing pattern, and cropping the image pixels within the boundaries of said ICZ framing pattern, prior to performing decode-processing operations; and (h) automatically decode processing the image pixels cropped in step (g) so as to read one or more 1D or 2D code symbols represented in the cropped image pixels.