Patent US 4,375,654

Graphical data on a document is raster scanned and the resulting bit pattern is processed to provide a processed bit pattern which represents lines which each are a single pel in width and indicative of the shapes of objects scanned on the document. These single pel wide lines may represent the outlines of objects on the center lines. The processed bit pattern is then directed to a line follower in which bits representing contiguous pels are detected and tested for linearity. When contiguous pels fail the linearity test, a new vector is started and the vector being tracked is terminated. Hardware for performing these operations is described. The resulting vector list is stored until needed for display. Optionally a display station can be used to correct faulty vectors or to encode alphanumeric data in a more convenient format than vector coding.