Scanner

Scanner
Scanners have become an important part of the home office over the last few years. Image scanner converts any printed page into electronic form by shining light onto the image and sensing light reflection at every point.

• Flatbed Scanners: Flatbed scanner is also called desktop scanners, are the most versatile and commonly used scanners. In fact, this article will focus on the technology as it relates to flatbed scanners.

• Handheld Scanners: Handheld scanners use the same basic technology as a flatbed scanner, but rely on the user to move them instead of a motorized belt. This type of scanner typically does not provide good image quality. However, it can be useful for quickly capturing text.

• Drum Scanners: Drum scanners are used by the publishing industry to capture incredibly detailed images. They use a technology called a photomultiplier tube (PMT). In PMT, the document to be scanned is mounted on a glass cylinder. At the centre of the cylinder is a sensor that splits light bounced from the document into three beams. Each beam is sent through a color filter into a photomultiplier tube where the light is changed into an electrical signal.

The basic principle of a scanner is to analyze an image and process it in some way. Image and text capture (optical character recognition or OCR) allow you to save information to a file on your computer. You can then alter or enhance the image, print it our or use it on your web page.

Operation of scanner
Here are the steps that a scanner goes through when it scans a document:

• The document is placed on the glass plate and the cover is closed. The inside of the cover in most scanners is flat white, although a few are black. The cover provides a uniform background that the scanner software can use as a reference point for determining the size of the document being scanned. Most flatbed scanners allow the cover to be removed for scanning a bulky object, such as a page in a thick book.

• A lamp is used to illuminate the document. The lamp in newer scanners is either a cold cathode fluorescent lamp (CCFL) or a xenon lamp, while older scanners may have a standard fluorescent lamp.

• The entire mechanism (mirrors, lens, filter and CCD array) make up the scan head. The scan head is moved slowly across the document by a belt that is attached to a stepper motor. The scan head is attaché to a stabilizer bar to ensure that there is no wobble or deviation in the pass. Pass means that the scan head has completed a single complete scan of the document.

• The image of the document is reflected by an angled mirror to another mirror. In some scanners, there are only two mirrors while others use a three mirror approach. Each mirror is slightly curved to focus the image it reflects onto a smaller surface.

• The last mirror reflects the image onto a lens. The lens focuses the image through a filter on the CCD array.

The filter and lens arrangement vary based on the scanner. Some scanners use a three pass scanning method. Each pass uses a different color filter (red, green or blue) between the lens and CCD array. After the three passes are completed, the scanner software assembles the three filtered images into a single full-color image.

• Most scanners today use the single pass method. The lens splits the image into three smaller versions of the original. Each smaller version passes through a color filter (red, green or blue) onto a discrete section of the CCD array. The scanner combines the data from the three parts of the CCD array into a single full-color image.


1 comments:

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