US 6,236,735 B1 · Two camera system for locating and storing indicia on conveyed items

Abstract

A two camera over-the-belt optical character recognition (OCR) system for reading the destination addresses on parcels carried on a conveyor belt. The parcels bear an orientation defining fluorescent ink fiduciary mark that is typically stamped on the parcel in the same area as the destination address. The fiduciary mark is located approximately in the center of the destination address block and oriented in the same direction as the underlying destination address. The first camera, a low resolution CCD camera, captures an image of the fiduciary mark. A host computer stores an image of the fiduciary mark, determines the position and orientation of the fiduciary mark, and defines a region of interest about the fiduciary mark. The second camera, a high resolution CCD camera, captures a grey-scale image of the conveyor and the parcels carried on the conveyor. The host computer extracts and stores the portion of the high resolution image that is within the region of interest including the text defining the destination address of the parcel. The host computer then rotates and displays the text image and/or transmits the text image to a text reader.

Claims14

Dependent claims

A method of capturing an image of readable indicia on an object, comprising the steps of:

affixing a mark to the object such that the mark and the readable indicia are superimposed one upon the other, the mark being configured such that its location and orientation are capable of being determined by a camera having a resolution of 16 pixels per inch;
capturing an image of the mark by exposing a side of the object to a first low resolution camera;
creating a matrix defining a coordinate system corresponding to the image;
translating a set of pixel values corresponding to the image of the mark into the matrix;
determining the position and orientation of the mark with respect to the coordinate system from the image of the mark;
defining a region about the position of the mark;
and
capturing an image of the readable indicia within the region by exposing the same side of the object to a second high resolution camera that is relatively unresponsive to the mark such that the readable indicia is readable within the image captured by the second camera despite the superimposition of the mark and the readable indicia.

5 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.

Two camera system for locating and storing indicia on conveyed items

Life of this patent

Two camera system for locating and storing indicia on conveyed items

Life of this patent

Abstract

Claims14