Abstract: A document scanner for producing any combination of color or grayscale or bi-tonal document images having a selectable range of resolutions is provided that maximizes image production speed by minimizing the processing required to produce the particular type of images selected. The scanner includes an imaging camera including a high-resolution grayscale CCD sensor in combination with lower resolution red, green, and blue CCD sensors. The scanner further includes an image processing circuit for processing data generated by the grayscale and color CCD sensors into any combination of color, grayscale, or bi-tonal document images having high or low resolution. High-resolution color images are produced by superimposing the high-resolution grayscale image generated by the grayscale sensor with the lower resolution color images generated by the color CCD sensors. The image processing circuit may also produce high or low resolution, color, grayscale or bi-tonal images when selected at respectively lower bandwidths.

Abstract: An automatic method for processing a color form includes: a) scanning the color form in color space, forming a digital color image, and converting the digital color image into a two-dimensional binary image in chrominance space; and b) conducting a color form dropout process.

Abstract: A system and method in which an image capture device such as a scanner can be automatically switched between a plurality of scanning modes without the need for manual intervention. In the system and method of the present invention, a document scanner can automatically switch or toggle between scanning modes while documents are being scanned. In one implementation of the present invention, the scanner can automatically switch between monochrome scanning and color scanning and vice versa based on a defined pattern on a document to be scanned. The document to be scanned can be in the form of a scanning mode switching document inserted into or associated with a stack of sheets of a jobstream. The scanning mode switching document can include a switching pattern that is detected by a processing system of the scanner.

Abstract: A method and apparatus for digitally synchronizing data units received from multiple asynchronous data sources which includes storing the data necessary to compensate for phase and frequency differences between the independently clocked asynchronous sources. The method includes the step of comparing the input queues for each of said data streams against a set of known threshold conditions, and generating the composite output upon satisfaction of the threshold conditions. This method allows data from asynchronous data sources to be properly interleaved without implementation of complex phase or frequency compensation techniques, and without a large amount of data storage for buffering the input data. Furthermore, in its preferred embodiment, this invention allows the implementation of a fixed rate output clock, which greatly simplifies the design over the prior art.

Abstract: A duplex document scanner for processing multiplexed images with a single data path is disclosed. A document transport (131) moves documents past a first image acquisition system (81) and second image acquisition system (82). The first digital image is transferred to a datastore (89) and the second digital image is transferred to a datastore (90). The images are merged into a composite image.