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Abstract

A data acquisition circuit for receiving an analog input signal having a magnitude representing light intensity detected by a sequentially accessed, linear array of photocells of a line scan camera and providing digital data signals for use by a computer, the circuit including an analog-to-digital converter to convert said analog input signal to a stream of digital intensity signals, an offset memory storing offset correction values for respective photocells, a gain memory storing gain correction values for respective photocells, an adder connected to add or subtract the digital intensity signal for a given photocell to the offset correction value for that photocell and provide an offset-corrected digital signal, a multiplier connected to multiply the offset-corrected digital signal for a given photocell times the gain correction value for that photocell to provide a calibrated digital signal. Also disclosed are: comparing, on a photocell-by-photocell (i.e., pixel-by-pixel) basis, the value of the digital intensity signal for each photocell with a respective threshold value stored in a threshold memory; a processing circuit that determines when the intensity values for adjacent photocells in the linear array in the line scan camera have a change in value and stores identification of the photocell at which there was a change in value; and a data compressor that receives parallel multibit intensity signals and provides single bit signals based on the values of the parallel multibit signals and a serial-to-parallel converter that sequentially stores the single multibit signals and groups a plurality of them together into a compressed, parallel multibit signal.

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