Video data acquisition system and hand-held application module for operation thereof

A vision system having a video camera for taking pictures of articles, a video control processing unit, and a hand-held application module for directing the operation of the system by the transmission of any of a plurality of commands, manually selected, controlled by digital computing means, comprising:

• (a) vision mode selection means, activated by a manually selected command from the module, for establishing communication between the module and the video control processing unit, and for providing a plurality of vision modes for selection;
• (b) teaching mode means, responsive to the vision mode selection means, for manually selecting desired vision modes for enabling the video camera to take repeated pictures of an article, within its field of view, in various positions to provide data for the identity of the article;
• (c) a keyboard for entering the selections by the module of the teaching mode means;
• (d) a visual display for displaying data relating to the article whose picture is repeatedly taken;
• and
• (e) a microprocessor for scanning the keyboard and refreshing the visual display, connected to receive the selection from the keyboard for transmission to the digital computing means, and to receive data from the digital computing means and to transmit the received data to the visual display.

A vision system having a video camera for taking pictures of articles, a video control processing unit, and a hand-held application module for directing the operation of the system by the transmission of any one of a plurality of commands, manually selected, controlled by digital computing means, comprising:

• (a) vision mode selection means, selected by a manually selected command from the module, for establishing communication between the module and the video central processing unit, and for providing a plurality of vision modes for selection;
• (b) verifying mode means, responsive to the vision mode selection means for selecting desired vision modes, for enabling the video camera to take pictures of pre-identified articles to provide data for verifying the identification of the pre-identified article;
• (c) a keyboard for entering the selections of the verifying mode means from the module;
• (d) a visual display for displaying data relating to the identified articles;
• and
• (e) a microprocessor for scanning the keyboard and refreshing the visual display, connected to receive the selection from the keyboard for transmission to the digital computing means, and to receive data from the digital computing means and to transmit the received data to the visual display.