ABSTRACT
This chapter summarizes an overview of the most commonly encountered scanning configurations is followed by a description of the most important scanning system performance requirements. It follows descriptions of scanning system deflector and lens components, and finally more detailed descriptions of a few examples of practical input and output scanning systems. Scanning systems can take many forms, and it is helpful to group them together in related fundamental configurations. Optical scanning is familiar to the general public through such widespread applications as supermarket barcode scanners, desktop color scanners, laser lightshows and desktop laser printers. Optical scanning in electro-optical systems began to be developed for pre-press commercial print processes in the 1940s, and for airborne mapping and reconnaissance in the 1950s, but the field really took off after the invention and commercialization of the laser in the 1960s. In post-objective scanning, the deflector follows the objective lens in the optical path.
