Facsimile and similar apparatus employing a plurality of solid-state image scanners
AssigneeNippon Electric Co., Ltd.
InventorsNaoki Kurakami, Tetsuya Takahashi, Etsuo Suzuki
Life of this patent
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Abstract
Appearance of joints between partly overlapping picture signal segments from a plurality of solid-state image scanners can be effectively avoided by means of automatically phase-setting the scan start signals for the respective image scanners relative to each other so that the logical sum signal of the marker signals contained in the respective signal segments is minimized in width. The marker as a source of the marker signals is fixedly arranged on the original-copy supporting table or separately therefrom in the region of overlap of the scan ranges of adjacent image scanners.
Claims11
A facsimile scanner comprising first and second image area scanner means for scanning an image area with an overlapped scan region to produce first and second analogue output signals, respectively, with first and second distinctive signals of a common duration included in said first and said second output signals, respectively, when said overlapped scan region includes a marker means for performing a logical sum of the durations of said first and second distinctive signals, and means responsive to said first and said second distinctive signals for adjusting said output signals in order to minimize the logical sum of the durations of said first and said second distinctive signals.
In a facsimile or similar apparatus of the type comprising means for producing a plurality of scan start signals which have the same repetition rate with an adjustable phase difference therebetween, first and second solid-state image scanners responsive to first and second of said scan start signals, respectively, for scanning an image area with an overlapped scan region to successively produce first and second analogue image signal segments, respectively, first and second marker signals of a common duration included in response to a density marker in said overlapped scan region in said first and said second image signal segments, respectively, and adjusting means responsive to said first and said second marker signals for adjusting the phase difference which said second scan start signal has relative to sid first scan start signal, said adjusting means adjusting the last-mentioned phase difference to make said first and said second image signal segments represent said image area with neither a doubling nor a gap of image signals occurring between said first and said second image signal segments, said adjusting means comprising:
- first means for separating said first and said second marker signals from said first and said second image signal segments to produce those first and second separated signals, respectively, which have durations substantially equal to said common duration;
- second means responsive to said first and said second separated signals for producing a sum signal which has a sum duration starting at the beginning of the duration of said first separated signal and ending at the end of the duration of said second separated signal;
- and
- third means responsive to said sum signal for adjusting the last-mentioned phase difference to minimize said sum duration, whereby said first and said second image signal segments are made to represent said image area with neither the doubling nor the gap of image signals.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.