Oversized Document Copying System

A system of algorithms is presented for copying documents that are larger than a normal copier platen. The objective is to produce a single output image by computing the registration between a number of image fragments that are scanned separately but cover the document to be copied. A new method for adjusting the registration of multiple image fragments is proposed in this paper. This technique avoids the propagation of errors that can occur in a sequential registration algorithm by adopting an iterative approach that effectively distributes registration errors over the fragments. A related method is also discussed that registers images represented in compressed form. Experimental results are presented that demonstrate the ability of the proposed method to accurately register multiple image fragments from large documents. These results are compared with those obtained with a previous sequential technique.