Image formation apparatus for viewing indicia on a planar specular substrate

An apparatus for forming images of indicia disposed on a mirror-like substrate, the apparatus comprising:

• a plurality of illumination elements for providing incident light rays so as to illuminate the mirror-like substrate, thereby producing reflected light rays;
• an image sensor;
• and
• a lens/aperture system including an elongated aperture slot having a longitudinal axis, the lens/aperture system being characterized by a first depth of field for focusing upon the image sensor along a longitudinal direction, the first depth of field being substantially smaller than a second depth of field for focusing upon the image sensor along a transverse direction.

An image formation apparatus for acquiring images of indicia on a mirror-like substrate, the apparatus comprising:

• a plurality of illumination elements for providing incident light rays so as to illuminate the mirror-like substrate, thereby producing reflected light rays;
• a printed circuit board for supporting and energizing the plurality of illumination elements, the printed circuit board including an elongated slot aperture having a longitudinal axis for selecting a bundle of the rays reflected by the mirror-like substrate to provide a selected ray bundle having an elongated cross section;
• an image sensor;
• and
• a lens, cooperative with the elongated slot aperture, for converging the selected ray bundle so as to provide a substantially focused image of the indicia on the image sensor, and to provide an image of the illumination elements on the image sensor that is both substantially defocused along the longitudinal axis, and substantially focused transverse to the longitudinal axis.

An image formation apparatus for acquiring images of indicia on a mirror-like substrate, the apparatus comprising:

• a longitudinally extended light source for providing incident light rays along the light source so as to illuminate a longitudinally extended portion of the mirror-like substrate, thereby producing reflected light rays;
• an image sensor;
• and
• a selector/converger that selects a bundle of the reflected light rays having an elongated cross-section, and converges the bundle of the reflected light rays upon the image sensor so as to form an image of at least a portion of the indicia on the image sensor.

An apparatus for forming images of indicia disposed on a mirror-like substrate, the apparatus comprising:

• a plurality of illumination elements for providing incident light rays so as to illuminate the mirror-like substrate, thereby producing reflected light rays, the plurality of illumination elements including a first plurality of darkfield illumination elements and a second plurality of darkfield illumination elements;
• an image sensor;
• a selector/converger that selects a bundle of the reflected light rays having an elongated cross-section, and converges the bundle of the reflected light rays upon the image sensor so as to form an image of at least a portion of the indicia on the image sensor;
• means for alternately energizing the first plurality of darkfield illumination elements and the second plurality of darkfield illumination elements;
• first memory means, cooperative with the image sensor, for storing a first darkfield image resulting from energizing the first plurality of illumination elements;
• second memory means, cooperative with the image sensor, for storing a second darkfield image resulting from energizing the second plurality of illumination elements;
• and
• image combination means, cooperative with the first and second memory means, for combining the first darkfield image and the second darkfield image so as to provide an extended darkfield image.