Patent ID: 8079521

Claim:
A method of improving the performance of an imaging reader comprising: illuminating a symbol by projecting illuminating light on the symbol from the imaging reader; capturing return light form the symbol as pixel data over a two-dimensional field of view of a solid-state imager having a matrix of image sensors, wherein the pixel data comprises a section of a pixel matrix and the section has N rows and M columns of pixels; merging a number of pixels to generate reduced pixel data with a coprocessor; transmitting the reduced pixel data from the coprocessor to a decoding circuit; and wherein the merging a number of pixels comprises the steps of, (a) dividing the M columns of pixels in the section of pixel matrix into multiple column groups, wherein two adjacent column groups share one or more columns of pixels in common, (b) for each given row of pixels in each column group, creating additional pixels in locations between the pre-existing pixel locations, whose values are obtained through calculations involving the values of those pixels in the given group, and (c) omitting some pixels.