Film image digitizer

An apparatus for digitizing an image on a film medium comprising,

• a transparent cylindrical drum revolvable about a longitudinal axis and capable of supporting a sheet of film image material about said drum,
• at least one light source in said drum for illuminating the back of said sheet,
• an opaque mask positioned over at least a portion of said drum and slightly spaced apart therefrom, said mask having a plurality of apertures thereon,
• a plurality of light detectors receiving light of variable intensity transmitted through said sheet, said light being directed from said sheet through said apertures onto said detectors, said detectors responsive to said received light to produce bytes of digital image data, there being a one-to-one correspondence between a byte of image data and a pixel on the sheet,
• means for moving said mask and said light detectors in unison, while the drum is revolving, said light detectors imaging pixels on the sheet of film material having a single pixel width, said mask and detectors moving longitudinally one pixel width per drum revolution, there being an integral number of pixel widths between adjacent detectors, the aggregate of all pixels forming a mosaic image, and
• a memory device having a number of storage locations in electrical communication with said detectors for storing said bytes of digital image data.

A method for digitizing an image on a film medium comprising,

• (a) placing a sheet of film image medium around the surface of a drum, said drum being transparent and having at least one light source within,
• (b) positioning a mask over a portion of said sheet on said drum, said mask having plurality of apertures thereon, an aperture at one end of said mask being positioned initially at an edge of said film,
• (c) rotating said drum about a longitudinal axis of said drum, while illuminating the back of said sheet with said light source,
• (d) detecting with a plurality of light detectors light transmitted through said sheet and through said apertures of said mask, said light having a variable intensity, the light detectors imaging pixels on said sheet having a width,
• (e) moving said mask and said light detectors in unison longitudinally at a rate of one pixel width per drum revolution, the apertures in said mask being equally spaced at a distance equal to an integral number of pixel widths, and
• (f) converting said detected variable intensity light to bytes of image data and storing said bytes in storage cells of a memory array, said bytes of image data representing an image on said sheet, each storage cell of the array containing a byte representing a pixel of a monochrome image.