Presentation board digitizer systems
Granted: October 9, 2001
Patent Number:
6300580
A presentation board digitizer system for large boards preferably employs at least three spaced-apart ultrasound receivers assemblies. A current position of an ultrasound transmitter is assigned as a weighted centroid of time of-flight position measurements based on at least two pairs of receiver assemblies. The weighting used varies as a function of the position of the transmitter across the board. A preferred structure of an ultrasound receiver assembly for use in the system employs a…
Software validation method and system
Granted: September 18, 2001
Patent Number:
6292270
A method embodiment of the invention tests revisions made to printer graphics interpreter software. A test suite of POSTSCRIPT, PCL, or other high-level printer language is input to a production version of a printer's internal interpreter software. A first bit-map is generated by the interpreter that is normally used to control each pixel in the printing of a page. The same test suite is fed to a work-in-progress revision of the printer's internal interpreter software. A second…
Intelligent detection of text on a page
Granted: September 11, 2001
Patent Number:
6289122
A technique for segmenting an image into text areas and non-text areas in which an image is stored with the following information per pixel: gray scale intensity (4 bits) and an indication of whether the pixel is neutral or color (1 bit). The image, e.g. a scanned RGB image, is converted to 0-15 levels of intensity and has a neutral/color indication bit assigned to each pixel. The technique proceeds in three phases as follows: Tile the image by square blocks, e.g. 6×6 or 8×8…
Computer system for processing images using a virtual frame buffer
Granted: July 31, 2001
Patent Number:
6269190
A page of an image is divided into several regions. Each of these regions may be compressed according to a different technique according to the kind of data within the region. Compression is used to reduce the memory requirements. Data for each region is available at any time and can be randomly accessed. Display operations may be processed in any order. For each display operation, the region which is affected is uncompressed and processed. As other regions are processed, memory space is…
Systems and processing algorithms for ultrasound time-of-flight digitizer systems
Granted: July 24, 2001
Patent Number:
6265676
A method and corresponding system for tracking variations in distance D calculated from time-of-flight measurements of a sequence of pulses of a pressure wave oscillation from a transmitter to a receiver identifies a state of synchronous operation by obtaining at least two time-of-flight measurements derived from successive pressure wave pulse which satisfy given synchronicity criteria. Successive time-of-flight measurements are then monitored to identify a shifted time-of-flight…
Retrofittable apparatus for converting a substantially planar surface into an electronic data capture device
Granted: July 24, 2001
Patent Number:
6266051
A graphic data-acquisition system which employs an active tracking system provides a retrofittable apparatus for converting a substantially planar surface into an electronic data capture device, in which the components of the system are readily retrofittable, at relatively low cost, to a wide variety of otherwise conventional writing-surface structures, such as so-called dry-erase whiteboards. Conventional triangulation techniques are used to track the position and motion of a writer or…
Command workstation image for a computer display
Granted: July 10, 2001
Patent Number:
D444793
Method and apparatus for label composition
Granted: July 3, 2001
Patent Number:
6256108
In variable data printing, a Variable data Job (varJob) is made out of variable data pages (varPages) which are composed by merging pregenerated labels (e.g. color separated compressed rectangular swatches). Labels are applied on any position in the page. All necessary clipping is preferably performed before labels are submitted to the VarJob. Labels are preprocessed as soon as they become available. Presumably many labels are generated once and applied many times, albeit at different…
Processor/memory non-intensive rendering for page printers
Granted: May 29, 2001
Patent Number:
6238105
Memory storage and memory bandwidth requirements of a color laser printer (or other printer having real-time printing constraints) are reduced by representing image information in a compressed format throughout the rendering process. At any one time during the rendering process, preferably, only a single scan line is expanded to the full, uncompressed format required for eventual printing. The rendered scan line is then recompressed and stored in memory. When all scan lines have been…
Scanning apparatus and method employing a lens spinning on an axis normal to the scan plane
Granted: May 29, 2001
Patent Number:
6239895
One or more lenses are revolved around an axis normal to a flat scan plane to provide a scanning mechanism for exposure onto (or reading off of) a flat plane of a substrate. The data for the image is remapped electronically or in software to compensate for the curved path of the focal point of the scanning lens. Combined with a conventional scanning mechanism in a second axis, an area scan is accomplished inexpensively on a flat plane.
Mixed format document finishing system responsive to a single page having an encoded document assembly specification
Granted: May 1, 2001
Patent Number:
6224048
A hybrid mixed format document that contains document portions prepared by different format sources, such as both black and white and colored pages, prepared by separately printing the colored pages on a color printer, and the black and white pages on a black and white printer. The two document portions are then put in separate locations within a mixed format finishing device. One of the document portions, for example the black and white document portion, includes a cover sheet that…
Automatic margin alignment using a digital document processor
Granted: May 1, 2001
Patent Number:
6226419
A system for automatic margin alignment for digital document processors. An output device is calibrated to graphics software without requiring the user to input offset information. The user need only print out first and second calibration sheets, overlay the first sheet on the second, and scan in the overlaid sheets. Margin marks such as vertical and horizontal lines on the first calibrating sheet signal the location of the respective horizontal and vertical margins. The edge of the…
Gamut correction with color separation and methods and apparatuses for performing same
Granted: May 1, 2001
Patent Number:
6225974
Methods and apparatuses for correcting gamut limitations of a color device. A method includes creating a predefined color space for use in gamut correction due to the gamut limitations of the color device, such as a color printer, and producing a set of color data values using the predefined color space. The set of color data values is for use in converting from a first color space (e.g., RGB) to a second color space (e.g., CMYK). A method in another embodiment includes creating a first…
Method and apparatus for image descreening
Granted: April 24, 2001
Patent Number:
6222641
An image descreening process first smoothes the image, where smoothing is accomplished by applying a convolution with a low pass filter (LPF) kernel, which is a parameter to the descreening function. Using the smoothed image, a determination is made for each pixel for which pixels around it participate in the modified filter. For a current pixel, a window is considered having the size of the LPF kernel, with the current pixel at the center. A threshold T1 which is given as a parameter,…
Configuration description language system
Granted: April 17, 2001
Patent Number:
6219659
A configuration description language system in a computer environment provides a mechanism to develop sets of rules intended to govern computing systems. A custom language is provided that the system designer uses to describe constraints and rules of target systems where a rule describes how a certain set of parameters of a computing system are determined based on an input set of desired characteristics. The desired characteristics pertain to certain tasks that the user wants to apply to…
Visual calibration
Granted: April 10, 2001
Patent Number:
6215562
A calibration apparatus and method for a color printer that allows a user to calibrate a printer without the use of expensive measuring instruments and prior user training is provided. The calibration process prints out two target layouts. On the first target the user selects the primary inks start and end points (highlights and shadows), and the black ink only input value that generates a 30% gray. The primary inks are the device-dependent colorants, cyan, magenta and yellow. The second…
Hand-held color measurement instrument
Granted: April 3, 2001
Patent Number:
D439851
Dithered image compression system
Granted: March 13, 2001
Patent Number:
6201614
A dithered image compression system that converts a source image into an image that is efficiently compressed and yet preserves the visual image information of the original source image in a computer environment. A preferred embodiment of the invention removes the image data from the source image that are lost during the normal storage and halftoning stages in one step. Each pixel in the source image is compared to the threshold array values. If the value of the source image pixel is…
Pen positioning system
Granted: February 6, 2001
Patent Number:
6184873
A pen positioning system is provided, in which a pen, having multiple output elements, is adapted to accurately determine the location of the pointing tip of the pen, in relation to an electronic tablet. The output elements, preferably ultrasonic transmitters having distinct frequencies, are located a fixed distance from each other, and are also related in space to the pointing tip of the pen. The geometric relationship between the output elements and the pointing tip of the pen allows…
Method and apparatus for image classification and halftone detection
Granted: February 6, 2001
Patent Number:
6185335
A method and apparatus for image classification includes a first embodiment, in which halftone detection is performed based on the size of a boundary set between a class of light pixels and a class of dark pixels, and further based upon image information contained within each single image plane (i.e within one color plane). This embodiment of the invention is based upon the distinctive property of images that halftone areas within the image have larger boundary sets than non-halftone…
