Scanning a document with a small camera attached to a mouse

This paper describes our new image input unit for users of personal computers. This unit has a small CCD camera, mainly used for video conferencing, attached to the mouse and digital mosaic processing software. Users normally operate the CCD camera and mouse independently. In this case, when a user wants to input an image of a photograph or document into the personal computer he/she attaches the CCD camera to a slant on the mouse by an attachment. The user then takes partial images by moving the mouse over the photograph or document until the entire desired area is covered. These partial images are then quickly merged into one synthesized image using digital mosaic processing software. This paper also describes a block matching method that accelerates the registration process of the digital mosaic processing software. This method quickly and accurately calculates Helmert's transformation parameter using a block matching method for parallel movement.