High-resolution reading and writing scan system for planar and cylindrical surfaces

The invention relates to the field of reading, writing, inspecting, printing, engraving, plotting, and vision. In the reading aspect it particularly relates to the fields of machine vision and inspection machines, such as those used to read and/or inspect industrial products such as compact disks (CDs), computer disks, video disks, digital video disks (DVDs), Printed Circuit Boards (PCBs) and silicon wafers used in the integrated circuits (IC) industry. In the printing aspect it relates to the field of writing, engraving, and printing machines, such as those used in the industrial fields of digital printing, internal drum scanning, preprinting and pre-press industry, laser beam writing, and photolithography. Scan systems include at least one radiation source for directing at least one beam toward a scan-device system. The scan device system includes at least one scan device that reflects these beams as rotating scan beams which point to the optical aperture of a rotating optical system. The rotating optical system has at least one optical component selected from a group of reflectors and lenses, focuses the scan beams into radiation spots, and projects them onto a scanned surface as moving scan spots. Linear relative movement between the scanned surface and the rotating optical system produces an area scan of inner drum or planar surface.