A CCD-based scanner would simply take a digital camera picture of whatever was placed on the scanner bed. The electronics in the device would compensate for the various distortion effects introduced by the lens system to bring the resulting image closer to flatbed standards (e.g., no barrel distortion).

The device could include options allowing for more complex scanning tasks. For example, when scanning books the electronics could automatically remove distortion that occurs at the spine of the book.

The primary objective is to increase the throughput of scanned images. Such a camera-based scanner could capture consumer quality film-based photos at a very high rate relative to a flatbed scanner. Images could be captured as fast as the user can place the photos to be copied on the scanner. With an auto-feeder the system could easily scan at a rate of a hundred photos a minute.