A device in equipment for automatically receiving, scanning and handling containers (41) which are essentially rotationally symmetrical about their longitudinal axes, e.g. bottles or cans of any suitable type of material, the equipment being arranged in such a way that the containers are conveyed and/or rotated in a lying position, by means of a conveyor (30), through a recognizing chamber (10) past at least two detectors for scanning information on the properties of the container (41), from where the scanned information is transferred to a control unit, which decides the conveying path downstream and further handling of the container (41), the conveyor (30) being arranged in such a way that the container (41) is forced at an angle against a supporting device (40), whereby the container (41) is simultaneously carried along and rotated about its own longitudinal axis in a helical movement; the device being provided with an image processing system (60) comprising a camera which is arranged, in cooperation with backlighting from a light plate (50), to recognize the appearance of the container (41), a bar code reader (70) being arranged to scan essentially simultaneously a bar code located on the container (41), the helical motion of the container (41) being such that in one turn of the container a complete bar code will be readable to the bar code reader (70).

A solid-state light source includes a semiconductor light source for emitting light and an optical system having a fiber optic element. The fiber optic element has an input for receiving emitted light from the semiconductor light source. The fiber optic element also has an output for emitting light received from the solid-state light source. The semiconductor light source and the fiber optic element in aggregate form an illumination path.

Methods of and systems for illuminating objects using planar laser illumination beams having substantially-planar spatial distribution characteristics that extend through the field of view (FOV) of image formation and detection modules employed in such systems. Each planar laser illumination beam is produced from a planar laser illumination beam array (PLIA) comprising an plurality of planar laser illumination modules (PLIMs). Each PLIM comprises a visible laser diode (VLD, a focusing lens, and a cylindrical optical element arranged therewith. The individual planar laser illumination beam components produced from each PLIM are optically combined to produce a composite substantially planar laser illumination beam having substantially uniform power density characteristics over the entire spatial extend thereof and thus the working range of the system. Preferably, each planar laser illumination beam component is focused so that the minimum beam width thereof occurs at a point or plane which is the farthest or maximum object distance at which the system is designed to acquire images, thereby compensating for decreases in the power density of the incident planar laser illumination beam due to the fact that the width of the planar laser illumination beam increases in length for increasing object distances away from the imaging optics. Advanced high-resolution wavefront control methods and devices are disclosed for use with the PLIIM-based systems in order to reduce the power of speckle-noise patterns observed at the image detections thereof. By virtue of the present invention, it is now possible to use both VLDs and high-speed CCD-type image detectors in conveyor, hand-held and hold-under type imaging applications alike, enjoying the advantages and benefits that each such technology has to offer, while avoiding the shortcomings and drawbacks hitherto associated therewith.

A camera-based tunnel-type package identification system comprising at least first and second camera units, a package dimension subsystem, and a data communications network installed about a conveyor belt structure. Each camera unit is mounted about the conveyor belt structure, and has a linear imaging subsystem with a field of view (FOV) having automatic zoom and focus imaging optics, and a camera control computer for controlling the operation of the imaging subsystem. During system operation, package dimension data from transported packages is transmitted over the data communications network to the first and second camera units. Each camera control computer converts received package dimension data to its local coordinate reference system, and generates camera control signals which drive the automatic zoom and focus imaging optics of its associated camera units to enable the capture and processing of linear images of the transported package.

A method of and apparatus for automatically producing digital images of an object having a substantially uniform white level independent of the velocity of the object. The method comprising determining the velocity of an object moving relative to a planar light illumination and imaging (PLIIM) based imaging system having a linear image detection array with a field of view (FOV), a planar light illumination array (PLIA) with a plurality of light emitting diodes (LEDs) arranged in a linear array for producing a planar light illumination beam (PLIB) coplanar with the FOV, and a micro-controller for controlling the operation of the PLIIM based imaging system. The determined velocity is used to compute the optical power which each light emitting diode (LED) must produce in order that each digital image of the object, formed by illuminating the object with the computed optical power, will have substantially the same white intensity level independent of the velocity of the object relative to the PLIIM-based imaging system. The computed optical power value(s) are transmitted to the micro-controller, and the micro-controller uses the computed optical power value(s) to drive each light emitting diode so that it produces a planar light illumination beam having the computed optical power level with the FOV. By virtue of the present invention, the planar light illumination beam illuminates the object, and the PLIIM-based imaging system automatically produces a digital image of the moving object, with pixels having a substantially uniform white level, independent of the velocity of the object. Such image characteristics enables simpler and more reliable image processing in applications such as, for example, optical character recognition (OCR) processing, where image pixels having a substantially uniform white level, and a uniform aspect-ratio, are often desired or required.