Apparatus for processing video signals received from an optical scanner

Claim 1

In an apparatus for recognizing characters, such as alpha-numeric characters, an improved video processor for processing video signals corresponding to slices of said characters received from an optical scanner having a plurality of parallel linear arrays comprising: comparator means for comparing said video signals with a dynamic threshold voltage, said comparator means coupled to receive said video signals; threshold generation means coupled to said comparator means for generating said dynamic threshold voltage for said comparator means, said threshold generation means coupled to receive said video signals and including circuit means responsive to the peaks of said video signals so as to set said threshold voltage in response to said peaks, said peaks corresponding to portions of said characters within said vertical slices, said circuit means causing said threshold voltage to decay at a predetermined rate after each of said peaks such that said dynamic threshold voltage is a function of the magnitudes of said peak; clamping means coupled to said comparator means for providing a lower limit for said threshold voltage, said clamping means coupled to and controlled by a first peak follower circuit which follows said peaks of said video signals, whereby an output signal from said processor is prevented when video signals received from said scanner are below a predetermined level; and a weighting network which weights signals from said arrays in a predetermined manner to provide smoothing and averaging of the signals received from the plurality of linear arrays; whereby compensation for dynamic range variations of said video signals is provided at the output of said comparator means since said signals are compared with said dynamic threshold voltage.