Maximum Performance Image Scanning, Image Enhancement, Viewing, Barcode Recognition, Printing, and Exporting

In a fiercely competitive business environment, timely, accurate information is the cornerstone of success. For a business to remain competitive—whether it’s a multinational corporation or a small, home-based enterprise—it must be able to use information as quickly as possible.

The problem is that the majority of mission-critical information continues to arrive sluggishly in the form of paper (e.g., contracts, faxes, invoices), which businesses must be able to quickly transform into business-ready content. The solution is in imaging, and for businesses entering the imaging space, there is no better resource than QuickScan™ Pro.

QuickScan Pro (QSP) is a standalone, out-of-the-box imaging solution that provides all the necessary capabilities for high-speed scanning, image enhancement, viewing, annotation, printing, and storing images for both black-and-white and color pages. Its strengths include flexible job separation, barcode recognition (up to 30 barcodes per page!), and, above all, usability.

In addition to being a standalone product, QSP can also be easily integrated into document management systems, serving as a “scan module,” which feeds scanned, cleaned-up images into the system. This flexibility empowers a business with a streamlined method for incorporating accurate, usable content into the overall workflow.

QSP is based on technology developed by Pixel Translations, and it greatly extends the power and functionality of PixView, Pixel Translations’ earlier utility, which was licensed to approximately 250,000 users.

Viewing
The high performance viewer delivers many capabilities to both display and manipulate images, such as:

· Fast scaling (zoom in and out)
· Image manipulation
· Thumbnail viewer
· Rotation (90 degree increments)
· Scale-to-gray conversion (improves readability of images)
· Pan window for instantaneous positioning in the view window

Scanning
QSP is based on Pixel Translations’ Image and Scanner Interface Specification (ISIS®). ISIS is the industry standard, enterprise-level interface that unites a universe of scanners and applications, supporting every feature of leading document scanners.

Developed in 1990, the ISIS specification has become the dominant method of scanner control for essential scanning applications, such as document imaging and OCR. And from the Association for Information and Image Management (AIIM), ISIS garnered the first-ever AIIM Standards Implementation Excellence Award at the AIIM 2002 conference.

QSP delivers peak performance from every scanning device. It can drive more than 300 different scanning devices through SCSI, video, USB, FireWire, and proprietary interfaces. And the PixTWAIN layer can support TWAIN drivers/scanners if ISIS is unavailable.

QSP’s scan Profiles allow users to create presets to make batch scans more efficient. Users can save different brightness, contrast, scan resolution, image processing options, and other batch-specific and scanner settings in each Profile.

Indexing
Users can easily link their documents with associated information using QSP’s generic indexer—an important new strength of the software that increases the usability of information across the enterprise. Indexing may be done at varied levels throughout the hierarchy: batch, document and page.

Compatibility-Tested with ISIS-Certified Scanners
QSP is the primary testing tool for all ISIS drivers; it is the only application guaranteed to be compatible with all ISIS-certified drivers.

Image Enhancement (Binary and Color)
QSP supports numerous filters to “clean-up” a scanned image, and its ability to use both binary and color processes also helps to improve image clarity and fidelity. This provides more accuracy for processes such as OCR/ICR/Barcode recognition while minimizing costly and typically inefficient manual “Reject/Repair” processes.

QSP’s Image Enhancement functions and filters can also reduce file sizes, resulting in image files that are both easier to send and more efficient to store. Filters include:

Barcode Recognition
The barcode filter detects and reads barcodes, including 2D barcodes, anywhere in the image; up to 30 bar codes can be read on each page. Supported barcodes include Code 39, UPC-A, EAN-13, Code 28, UPC-E, ISBN Addon 2, Code 93, Codabar, ISBN Addon 5, Interleaved 2/5, EAN-8, Airline 2 of 5, BCD Matrix, Matrix 2 of 5, Code 32, Invert 2 of 5, Datalogic 2 of 5, and PDF 417.

Automatic Naming
QSP empowers users with an automatic file naming functionality, which allows users not only to assign names to files but to organize those files as well. There are three pre-configured naming schemas, or a user may create an all-new naming schema in tune with their enterprise needs. As a schema is selected or created, the bottom portion of the dialog will display a sample of what files will be named and what sub-directories will be created.

Files may also be automatically submitted to a naming convention based on their respective barcodes, which further simplifies and speeds the process of incorporating, and accessing, mission-critical data.

Integrated Job Separation
QSP supports flexible job separation at scan time via patchcodes, allowing scanned images to be conveniently segmented. In addition, you can segment scanned images by blank pages, incremental page count, barcodes, etc.

Multipage Document Editing
As many people require a certain degree of flexibility when processing, QSP includes multipage document editing capabilities, allowing users to append to a multipage document, delete or insert an image in a multipage document, drag and drop an image from one place in a file to another, and much more.

Localization Support
QSP currently provides localization support for Italian, French, German, Spanish, and Japanese, with other languages added easily.

Unlimited Scan License
Unlike similar products, QSP has an unlimited scan license—there is no “per scan” fee.

Export to Backend Systems
QSP’s export feature enables the user to create export modules to move images directly from QSP to OCR applications or back-end repositories.

Image Annotations
Images can be enhanced with multi-colored highlighting, freehand line drawing, polyline drawing, redaction (opaque overlays), “sticky notes,” arrow, stamp tool, and a text tool that supports special characters, and many other annotations.

Printing
QSP easily prints images from Windows to any printer.

Supported File Formats
QSP supports most binary, grayscale and color file formats including, TIFF, PNG, PCX/DCX, BMP, JPEG, JPEG 2000, CALS, JBIG, MO:DCA, GIF, PDA and PDF. GIF and LZW support is also available.

System Requirements
· Windows 98, Me, 2000, NT, or XP
· Pentium II CPU (400 MHz or higher recommended)
· At least 128 MB of RAM (256 MB or more is recommended)
· Recommended: ISIS-supported scanner (see next section)

ISIS-Supported Scanners
Pixel Translations is the preeminent supplier of ISIS scanner drivers, the de-facto standard in production scanning. (The public domain version of AIIM’s scanning standard, ANSI/AIIM Standard MS61, is based on ISIS technology.) There have been more than 300 ISIS scanner drivers developed, offering the largest repertoire of scanner support available anywhere.

Virtually all mid-speed to high-speed scanner manufacturers engage Pixel Translations to develop ISIS-certified scanner drivers for their scanners. The driving force in engaging ISIS driver support for new scanners coming to market is the 200+ commercially available applications that have been developed using Pixel Translations’ PixTools toolkits. In addition, numerous low-speed or desktop scanners have ISIS support.

Following is a list of many of the scanner manufacturers supported by ISIS scanner drivers:

Agfa
Kodak
Avision
Linotype-Hell
BancTec
Microtek
Bell & Howell
Minolta
BUIC
Panasonic
Canon
Ricoh
Epson
Savin
Fujitsu
Scan-Optics
Heidelberg
UMAX
Hewlett-Packard
Visioneer
InoTec
Xerox

Note: This list is subject to change. Not all scanners are supported on all platforms. Some drivers are available directly from manufacturers either “bundled” in the scanner box or on their website.

For a detailed list, please visit www.scannerdrivers.com, where you can see all the scanner manufacturers supported and which models have ISIS scanner drivers.

TWAIN-Supported Scanners
While most mid-range to high-speed scanners have an ISIS scanner driver, there are some lower-speed scanners that only offer TWAIN drivers. QSP accommodates these scanners with the PixTWAIN ISIS driver. (Caution: The PixTWAIN gateway can only provide the scanner feature set provided by the TWAIN data source.)

MultiStream™
Some new scanners simultaneously create multiple streams of data, notably, binary and color. QSP supports multiple streams and allows the user to work efficiently and effectively with this new scanner feature, when available.
 

System Requirements
 

• Windows 98, Windows Me, Windows 2000, Windows NT 4.0, and Windows XP
   
• Pentium III CPU
  (400 MHz or higher recommended)
   
• At least 64 MB of RAM
  (128 MB or more is recommended)