Optical character reader

Abstract

Abstract PURPOSE:To reduce the capacity of an illumination light source and to miniaturize the optical shape of illumination by narrowing the range of illumination in the carriage direction of a body to be read without reference to the entry direction of character information as to an automatic zip-code reading sorter. CONSTITUTION:On the basis of read information obtained from the 1st read part 11, discrimination part 16 discriminates whether character information on body P to be read is entered laterally or longitudinally and, at the same time, discriminates the entry position of the character information. On the basis of the discrimination results, the 1st and 2nd movable mirrors 20 and 25 provided to the 2nd read part 17 are controlled; the 1st movable mirror 20 directs relfected light from body P to be read to the 1st lateral image pickup device 24 and the 2nd longitudinal image pickup device 27 selectively and also sets a readout visual-field position. Further, when the entry direction is longitudinal, the 2nd movable mirror 25 follows up the readout visual field. Consequently, the visual field of illumination in the carriage direction of the body to be read is narrowed down without reference to the entry direction of character information.

Inventors

• 👤 Shuji Kizu

Bibliographic Details