Patent ID: 7464877

Claim:
A hand-supportable digital imaging-based bar code symbol reading system comprising: a hand-supportable housing; an image formation and detection subsystem including (i) image formation optics for producing a field of view (FOV) upon an object to be imaged, and (ii) an area-type image sensing array for detecting imaged light reflected off the object during illumination operations in an image capture mode, and producing a 2D image of the illuminated object; a LED-based illumination subsystem having an LED illumination array for producing a field of illumination within said FOV of said image formation and detection subsystem during said image capture mode; an image cropping pattern generator for generating a visible illumination-based image cropping pattern (ICP) projected within said FOV of said image formation and detection subsystem; an object presence and range detection subsystem for producing an object detection field within said FOV of said image formation and detection subsystem; an automatic light exposure measurement and illumination control subsystem for measuring illumination levels in a central portion of said FOV and controlling the operation of said LED-based illumination subsystem; an image capturing and buffering subsystem for capturing and buffering 2D images detected by said image formation and detection subsystem; a cropped image locating module for processing said captured and buffered 2D images so as to locate the image region corresponding to said ICP, and cropping said image region; a perspective correction and scaling module for processing said cropped image region and correcting the perspective of said cropped image region and scaling the perspective corrected image to a predetermined pixel image size suitable for decode-processing; an image-processing based bar code symbol reading subsystem for decode-processing cropped and scaled images generated by said perspective correction and scaling module, and reading 1D and 2D bar code symbols represented in said captured and buffered 2D images; and an input/output subsystem for outputting processed image data to an external host system or other information receiving or responding device.