This optical scanner uses a rotor with lenses. The lens surfaces are special and made up of surface elements parallel to the rotor axis. Preferably the source of light is a laser emitting very nearly parallel light rays. The rays are directed through a narrow line-like area that may lie on the rotor axis, and that emits a narrow fixed light bundle. A rotor lens forms an image of said line-area on a record. The thus illuminated area moves along a character line of the record as the rotor turns. To cover the entire length of a line of characters with the fixed narrow light bundle, the lens profile in a plane perpendicular to the rotor axis has a varying curvature. Its curvature radius is smallest in the mid-portion. The light reflected from the illuminated record area is gathered by a stationary elongated lens that extends along a plane perpendicular to the rotor axis at a constant distance from the record surface. This elongated lens has a portion, such as an opening, adapted to let the incoming light through without alteration. The reflected light passing through said elongated lens and through the adjacent lens of the rotor reaches a photocell.
In an optical scanning system having a rotary scanner with multiple reflectors, which scanner images a light-responsive detector and moves that image repeatedly across the flat image field of an objective to generate a scanning raster, an optical corrector is mounted in the beam imaging the detector to correct for the fact that the detector image moves in a curved path. The optical corrector has a stepped surface such as to adjust the detector image incrementally during a scan, in the direction normal to the plane of the image field of the objective, so as to make the detector image motion substantially parallel to said image field.
A microfilm scanning apparatus of the entrance scanner type has a microfilm, normally mounted in an aperture card which is mounted on a curved surface of a plano-convex cylindrical lens platten. The microfilm is scanned in one direction by radiant energy produced by a laser diode, scanning being effected by facets on a bevelled edge polygon mirror which is rotated by a motor. So as to perform scanning in a direction orthogonal to the scanning produced by the mirror, the platten is driven by a stepping motor. The curved surface of the platten is arranged to coincide with the loci of the focus of the scanning beam as the mirror rotates. By the provision of a curved surface platten, a simple spherical lens system may be interposed between the mirror and platten.
An apparatus and method are provided for reading contiguous, conterminous, parallel data lines (76) of minute, rectangular bits of information printed on a substrate (2) and together forming a data strip (3) with its length, perpendicular to the data lines (76). The reader (1) includes alignment means for holding the strip (5) and includes data line scanning means (33, 40, 130) on a chassis (20) which moves longitudinally of the data strip (3) while simultaneously and synchronously scanning the tranverse data lines (76) at a rate that scans each data line a plurality of times. An infra-red light source (50) illuminates the data line (76) being scanned, and crossed cylindrical lenses (30, 32, 40, 130), moving relative to each other and to the data strip (3), focus individual scanned bits upon a matched infra-red detector (42). Multiples (33) of one of the cylindrical lenses, mounted on a rotating drum (44), are used to increase speed of operation. Means are provided for continuously aligning the lenses with the data strip (144, 170), for synchronizing the relative motion of the lenses and the data strip (44, 27, 28, 24), for correlating the scanning means with the size and number of bits of information and with the ratio of the illumination intensity of the printed bits and the substrate (74, 80), and for utilizing a single scan from each multiply-scanned data line (76).
In a continuously rotating container having substrates to be processed, a loading and unloading mechanism is provided which introduces and removes the substrates without interruption of the rotation of the container.
