US Patent 8630491 System and method to manipulate an image

A method of operating an image reader includes the steps of: searching a digital image for nominally straight edges; characterizing the nominally straight edges in terms of length and/or direction; determining a predominant orientation of the nominally straight edges; establishing a group of edges as a function of their proximity to the center of the image; establishing a group of edges as a function of their proximity to other remaining edge positions; and, transmuting a rectangle bounding those edges into a rectified image; wherein a rectified image is an image that is cropped or rotated.