Main Content

A flat bed scanner typically uses three rows of CCD sensors (RGB) to capture images placed directly on top of the glass bed. When the CCD array scans from one end of the image to the other, the digitized color image is formed. So with a similar approach, we could use just one photosensitive device to capture the entire image one pixel at a time via raster scanning. Now that I have an HP 7044A X-Y recorder I could use it’s X/Y servo mechanism with a suitable sensor to build a single pixel scanner. The simplest sensor would be just a photodiode or a CdS photocell. For capturing grayscale images, either of these sensors could be used. To capture color images though, we would need a sensor that is capable of discerning the RGB components of each pixel. For that I used an inexpensive TCS34725 based color sensor module.”

Link to article