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US 9,041,985 B2Granted
Image reading apparatus
AssigneePfu Limited
InventorsYuki Kasahara, Masahiko Kobako, Masaya Takamori
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
An image reading apparatus includes a casing that blocks ambient light and has an opening portion in a bottom surface, an image capturing unit that captures an image of a medium exposed to an internal portion of the casing in the opening portion, and a plurality of light sources that are arranged on the internal portion of the casing and irradiate light toward the opening portion. The plurality of light sources irradiate light to different areas on a plane in the opening portion.
Claims7
An image reading apparatus comprising:
- a casing that blocks ambient light and has an opening portion in a bottom surface;
- an image capturing unit that captures an image of a medium exposed to an internal portion of the casing in the opening portion;
- a plurality of light sources each of which includes a plurality of light emitting devices, the plurality of light sources being arranged on the internal portion of the casing and emitting light toward the opening portion;
- and
- an image processing unit included in an external device and configured to generate a synthetic image including the image of the medium based on images from the image capturing unit, wherein
- the plurality of light sources irradiate respective irradiation areas with light, the irradiation areas including first and second irradiation areas different from each other on a plane in the opening portion,
- when only first one of the plurality of light sources is turned on to irradiate the first irradiation area with light, the image capturing unit captures the image of the medium to generate a first image including a reflection area corresponding to an area within the first irradiation area where reflection occurs,
- when only second one of the plurality of light sources is turned on to irradiate the second irradiation area with light, the image capturing unit captures the image of the medium to generate a second image including a reflection area corresponding to an area within the second irradiation area where reflection occurs, and
- the image processing unit is configured to synthesize the first image with the second image to generate the synthetic image from which the reflection areas are extracted.
6 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.