Scan engine with configurable communication interface

An apparatus for interfacing a scan engine for scanning optical code symbols and a decoder, the apparatus comprising:

• an input communicatively coupled to the scan engine, wherein the scan engine is adapted to transmit a digitized bar pattern (“DBP”) signal comprised of a plurality of code patterns that each correspond to an optical code symbol scanned by the scan engine, and wherein each of the plurality of code patterns are comprised of a sequence of pulses having durations that are proportional to a width of a corresponding code element of the scanned optical code symbol;
• and
• one or more processors coupled to the input and a computer-readable medium, which stores instructions executable by the one or more processors including:
• generating a relaxed DBP signal, independent of a scan rate used by the scan engine, that is comprised of a plurality of transmission slots of a variable duration, wherein the relaxed DBP signal is one that is independent of a scan rate and independent of a distance between the optical code symbol and the scan engine during a scanning operation;
• for each code pattern received, scaling a narrowest pulse in the pulse sequence to a fixed minimum pulse duration;
• and
• upon scaling the narrowest pulse in the pulse sequence, scaling remaining pulses in the pulse sequence to maintain a relative proportionality of each pulse width in the pulse sequence.

A system for scanning optical code symbols comprising:

• a scan engine adapted to transmit a digitized bar pattern (“DBP”) signal comprised of a plurality of code patterns that each correspond to an optical code symbol scanned by the scan engine, and wherein each of the plurality of code patterns are comprised of a sequence of pulses having durations that are proportional to a width of a corresponding code element of the scanned optical code symbol;
• a decoder adapted to retrieve data encoded in the scanned optical code symbols using a relaxed DBP signal comprised of a plurality of transmission slots;
• and
• a configurable communication interface configured to generate the relaxed DBP signal using the DBP signal and communicatively coupled to the scan engine and the decoder, wherein the relaxed DBP signal is independent of both a scan rate used by the scan engine when scanning optical code symbols and a distance between optical code symbols and the scan engine during a scanning operation.