Optical
scanners create electronic data representative of a scanned object.
Optical scanners are widely used as a device for writing an image in the image forming apparatuses such as
digital copying machines,
optical printers, or
facsimile machine. Commercial scanning products include
flatbed scanners, scroll-fed scanners, hand-fed scanners, color copiers, fax machines and all-in-one multi-function products. Optical scanners for image-forming apparatuses such as
laser beam printers and digital copying machines are adapted to cyclically deflect a light beam emitted from a light source and optically modulated in accordance with an image signal by means of an optical deflector such as a rotary polygon mirror, converge the light beam to a spot of light on the surface of a photosensitive recording medium by means of an imaging optical system and cause the light beam to scan the surface in order to record image information. Flatbed optical scanners have a transparent, horizontally disposed, flat plate or platen upon which an object to be scanned. The document is scanned by sequentially imaging narrow strip or scan line portions of the document on a linear optical sensor array such as a
charge coupled device (CCD).
Handheld optical scanners are used in a variety of applications including text scanning,
barcode reading, and picture grabbing. These scanners comprise an optical sensor for acquiring image information that is managed by a central processing unit (CPU) and stored in a memory.
