Map scanners are commonly used across a variety of industry sectors, where a crisp and clear image is of primary importance. They are used by a range of customers, from university departments to architects and engineers who use technical digital images on a day to day basis. Colortrac large format scanners offer cutting edge precision images which are ideal for aerial or satellite photographs, GIS and cartography. They offer a low cost scanning solution for the creation of high resolution images.

Choosing The Right Map Scanner

Choosing a map scanner can be more difficult than you might think; with different types of imaging technology on the market, picking the right scanner to meet your needs can feel like finding a needle in a haystack. Modern scanners offer more functions than ever before so it’s essential you know which technology best fits your user needs. A customer who intends to primarily scan old documents will benefit from a different machine to someone who plans on scanning aerial photographs.

There are three key types of scanning technologies currently available which can be used for mapping. These are Charge Coupled Displays (CCD), Contact Image Sensors (CIS) or the unique SingleSensor scanning technology which has largely replaced the older CIS devices. The CCD technology scanning works in a similar way as a traditional camera, whereby the light passes through multiple lenses and the images are captured with multiple “cameras” using CCD sensors. This method is better where thicker media such as maps fixed to foam board or where a higher depth of field may be required. This can be of considerable benefit when scanning old documents. The SingleSensor digital imaging technology is a Colortrac invention that uses up to 50,400 individual sensors in a straight line across the width of the scanner. This SingleSensor technology is substantially lower cost than CCD, yet it produces high image quality and color reproduction approaching that gained from a CCD device. It’s ideal for scanning thin media and it’s a much more versatile and portable technology.

Map Scanners Innovation

The modern GIS and map scanners combine high resolution with sharpness resulting in exceptional image quality and high dimensional accuracy. Colortrac scanners are available in a variety of specifications depending on your requirements; various widths are available which can scan maps up to E+ and A0+ in size. Advanced paper transport is available to safely transport old and fragile maps. Colortrac scanners are incredibly diverse in scope; previously they have been used to scan First World War trench maps and to produce a 3D digital terrain model for a battlefield satellite navigation system. The possibilities of what you can do with Colortrac precision are only limited by your imagination!

Why To Have A Map Scanner In-house?

GIS and map scanners make an excellent addition to in-house office technology. All Colortrac scanners are designed with their environmental and low energy requirements impact in mind. This ensures that the scanners are sustainable, economical to run and promise a long life. A GIS / map scanner is a real investment which will allow your company to digitally archive delicate and fragile documents in-house. This function increases security, minimizes the risk of loss and damage to your irreplaceable or vulnerable documents and reduces overall space occupied by storing.

For bespoke advice, contact Colortrac experienced teams.

Large format scanners for digitizing artwork

Those who are most comfortable with technology, by and large, are more likely to get noticed in the artistic world. The more easily a piece of art work can be disseminated, the more likely it is that the artist who made it will receive recognition. Even if you have the artistic talent to produce desirable artworks or prints, it is still necessary to advertise your artwork as widely as possible in a digital format if you intend to succeed in the art world. This is especially true for the pictorial arts. While there are some artists who do not choose to capitalise on the benefits of the information age, they are definitely at a disadvantage to those artists who more quickly embrace the opportunities the internet offers. Whether or not an artist is in a position to take advantage of these opportunities is largely down to their facilities – that is, whether they have the requisite hardware to import and upload their images. The answer to this, is a good art scanner.

Choose the right scanner for your art

The most important step is ensuring you own the right type of scanner. For the purposes of digitizing paintings and other art work, it is crucial to make sure that you have a scanner large enough to handle the piece without reducing image quality or damaging the original. Regular sized scanners generally aren’t capable of handling the kind of thickness necessary to scan poster board, or to scan watercolor and acrylic paintings without potentially damaging the paintwork. It’s necessary to ensure that your scanner can handle the kind of pieces you intend to create. Finding the best scanner for art can be difficult, but the key is to go for a high resolution large format scanners. Preferably something offering at least 1200dpi optical resolution. Scanners such as these, for instance Colortrac’s SmartLF SC series, work in different manner to traditional flatbed scanners. These high resolution scanners utilise stationary imaging sensors and illumination with the print is passed under it. These type of scanners are good scanners for artists as they afford a higher definition image with excellent color rendition. While some individuals prefer to go to a scanning/copying shop to do their scanning, if you intend to regularly scan large pieces of art work you will find it much more cost effective to own your own scanner – as well as time saving! After making your purchase, next is how to scan art with a large format scanner.

How to digitize artwork & paintings

Scanning artwork with a large format scanner is very straightforward using the scanning software provided with the scanner, such as SmartWorks Pro. First ensure the scanner and the software is properly installed. Then you must decide how many colors you wish to use in the scanned image. You will be given the option of ‘monochrome’ or ‘color’. Monochrome will produce a black and white digital copy, and color will render the copy in the same colors of the print. It is important to note here, that if you intend to Photoshop – and very handy tool for artists – it is important to select ‘color’, as otherwise you will be hampered in your editing options. Next simply take the artwork and, with the image facing up, feed the top edge into the mouth of the scanner. The scanner should then draw the print through the body of the scanner and quickly produce an identical image on the PC screen. The resulting image will be a high resolution, and high quality, faithful digital representation of your artwork. If you need to trim, crop or alter the colors in the image, this can all be done at this stage without having to re-scan the artwork. After scanning, upload your digital image to the internet and enjoy the benefits of exhibiting a digital image copy of your artwork to a worldwide audience!

For more information regarding art digitization, contact Colortrac experienced teams.

]]> http://www.colortrac.com/digitize-artwork-and-paintings-art-scanning-solutions/feed/ 0 http://www.colortrac.com/top-benefits-of-large-format-scanners-colortrac-review/ http://www.colortrac.com/top-benefits-of-large-format-scanners-colortrac-review/#comments Wed, 29 May 2013 13:43:45 +0000 Rob Van Brakel http://www.colortrac.com/?p=3981

In industries such as construction, architecture, engineering and manufacturing, or in local authorities’ planning departments, large-format paper drawings and plans are commonplace. These are not without drawbacks, as their sheer size makes them more vulnerable to being damaged when handled, and paper will deteriorate over time. They also take up a lot of valuable office space or storage space, as well as being cumbersome to copy and share.

This undoubtedly explains why these fields have adopted large format scanners so readily and have embraced the digitization of their documents without a look back. There are many advantages to moving towards a paperless office and here are the top 5 ones:

1. Digitize Your Office

In a fast-paced business world, paperwork can overwhelm even the most organised workers and offices, reducing productivity and sometimes causing loss of crucial information. By digitizing your important plans, you can ensure that this risk is kept to a minimum and that you are creating a pleasant working environment for your staff. The quality of the scans produced by Colortrac large format scanners is second to none and their sharp definition is especially well suited to technical documents like CAD drawings and blueprints which need to be reproduced with the highest accuracy.

2. Archive & Store Your Important Documents

Colortrac models are versatile and enable you to digitize different formats, either in mono or in color. Digitizing your large-format documents offers the benefit of safer storage and ease of retrieval. You will never need to worry about plans being mislabelled, misplaced, or lost, and should your company suffer from a fire or a flood, all your electronic plans and drawings (provided they were backed up off site) will be intact and your business unaffected, at least from a document perspective.

In addition, you won’t need to plan for floor space, and you won’t be slowed down while waiting for archived documents to come back from storage.

3. Copy & Edit with Efficiency

Scanning large-format documents also enables businesses a more efficient workflow. Instead of cumbersome copying, with perhaps loss of quality from the original, Colortrac scanners allow you to scan to PDF, TIFF or JPG formats and make copies of your documents on any Windows printer. Making them easy to use with SmartWorks EZ software that comes with each scanner. It makes large format scanning as easy as child’s play.

4. Email & Share instantly

Whether your company employs sales teams visiting clients or manages projects involving co-workers located in different offices, the ability to have all the information under your fingertips and to be able to cope with the unexpected will increase the quality of your services and your customers’ satisfaction. No more waiting around for the courier to deliver these precious documents you can’t work without!

5. Financial benefits

While purchasing large-format scanners is undeniably an investment, the financial benefits will offset it quickly. By digitizing your documents, you will reduce your paper and ink costs as less printing will be necessary, also prolonging the life of your printers. You will save on postage costs as documents can be emailed rather than sent, and on storage and office space costs.

All this will in turn free up staff time and increase your productivity, improving your company’s profitability. For more information, don’t hesitate to get in touch with Colortrac experienced teams.

Come and see what difference these products can make to your archival and scanning projects.  Demonstrating scanning excellence and ease of use can all be seen and experienced at Expografica, Guadalajara 22 – 25 May, 2013

Cepe    www.cepe.com.mx

Textiles and Apparels

Adding wide format scanners brings a new dimension to designing and creating stunning new textile and apparel designs.  By using the new Colortrac  Innovative Technology incorporated into the SmartLF SC 42 or SC 36 scanners it helps make transferring drawn apparel designs into reality.  By simplifying the digitizing of the design and making certain the image transferred to either large format ink jet printers for heat transfers or to dye sublimation printers is as accurate and eye catching as the artists originally planned.

With scanning widths from 28 inches to 56 inches, the Colortrac SmartLF scanner ranges, the choice to match your requirements is simplified.  You can rely on Colortrac Innovative Technology to help bring your creative and stunning images into reality.

Where to see Colortrac

To see more, talk to Digicor and ask for a demonstration of what the New Colortrac Innovative Technology in wide format scanners can do for you!

Digicor:   www.digicor.com.br

Serigrafia SIGN Future Textil

To see more, talk to Digicor and ask for a demonstration of what the New Colortrac Innovative Technology in scanning can do for you!

Digicor:   www.digicor.com.br

IPS Fair:  www.en.ipsfair.com.br

Come and see what surprises and solutions we have for your digital Maps & GIS scanning problems.

Further information to be added shortly.

On show will be the SmartLF SC large format scanning solutions.  Showing highly productive and premium quality large format scanning solutions at affordable prices.

View the video that explains why High Quality Imaging with the new digital imaging SingleSensor technology makes sense

The SmartLF SC Series large format scanners are available in 42″, 36″ and 25″ scan widths with 1200dpi optical resolution and SuperSpeed USB 3.0 data transfer.  This provides fast, high quality scans or copies of wide format color graphics, drawings, site plans, engineering drawings, blueprints, architectural renderings and many other colored documents.

Visit us at Booth #1838 and let us help you find the right solution for your wide format scanning needs.

Check the Sign Expo 2013 website for further details.

ISIS is the preferred method for connecting popular document scanners to Electronic Document Capture (EDC) systems. This market has traditionally focused on capturing high volumes of small format monochrome and colour documents such as insurance proposal & claim forms.  But demands from AEC, SmartLF® scanners by allowing connection to existing EDC applications with minimal fuss, training or process impact.

Many larger organisations are moving towards full Enterprise Document Management systems (EDMs) and use solutions like Documentum®, LaserFiche® or PaperVision® to manage small or medium sized documents easily within their system workflow.  ISIS driver operators are presented with familiar workflow screens and processes on their workstations and making scanning large documents no more difficult than regular sized documents.

Transfer of ISIS data to ‘The Cloud’ is possible by using the new provisions for this now being built into the EDC packages by the developers (e.g. EMC® Captiva Cloud Toolkit) or simply by substituting the user’s normal local or network drive with a Google® Drive or Microsoft® SkyDrive.  Either way ISIS Cloud data transfer is a breeze.

All new SmartLF SC Series scanners come supplied with a ready-to-use ISIS driver as part of their basic scanner software delivery.  Certified and manufactured by EMC Captiva the developer, specifier and regulator of the ISIS standard, this new driver has a 2-year support and correction warranty from EMC themselves.  The driver works with Colortrac SmartLF SC 25, SC 36 and SC 42 scanners.

The Colortrac SmartLF SC series large format scanners are capable of scanning monochrome documents at 13 inches/sec. and color at up to 6 inches/sec.  To handle the higher quantity of image data from the increased scanning speed, the SmartLF SC series use Colortrac FireFly communications technology and industry standard SuperSpeed USB 3.0 serial PC interfaces.  This improves scanning productivity and reduces the time taken to transfer image data from scanner to host EDC or online storage services.  Independent tests have indicated that realistic throughputs of 273 Arch-E (36” x 48”) sized color pages per hour at 200dpi resolution or 171 documents at 400dpi are easily maintained.

Summarizing the capabilities of the new wide format scanner, Colortrac Executive Director Peter Brown commented “All Colortrac SmartLF SC Series scanners use the SingleSensor, SureDrive and ClearView technologies and are Energy Star qualified.  Colortrac Innovative Technologies we achieve higher scanning speed, with SuperSpeed USB3 data transfer and FireFly drivers; these unique features contribute to making the SmartLF SC series wide format scanners probably the most productive scanners available for discriminating users.”

More information about Colortrac Innovative Technologies and how they benefit SmartLF customers can be found on www.colortrac.com/about/colortrac-innovative-technologies/

Note: Colortrac and SmartLF® are trademarks of Colortrac Ltd. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

END

For further information contact:

Rob van Brakel,
Marketing Manager,
Colortrac Limited.
Tel: +44 (0)1480 464618
Email: press@colortrac.com
Web: www.colortrac.com

About Colortrac …
Founded in 1989 and based in St Ives, Cambridgeshire UK, a region of British excellence in science and technology, Colortrac Ltd is the leading innovator in professional wide format scanners and image acquisition software solutions with many new technically innovative patents created by their Research and Development departments, including the NEW SingleSensor scanning technology.

Colortrac was the first wide format scanner manufacturer to recognize the individual merits of both Charge Coupled Display (CCD), Contact Image Sensor (CIS) and will incorporate the newly introduced SingleSensor technology into some of their new SmartLF scanners.  Coupled with a full range of supporting SmartWorks software, they are creating unique customer solutions to simplify scanning problems across the full spectrum of applications.  These range from the demanding Graphics Arts market to practical, productive CAD, GIS, EDM and FM technical document scanning.

Colortrac Ltd Headquarters is located near Cambridge, UK and has offices in Beijing and Suzhou – P.R. China, Chantilly and Virginia – USA, Yokohama – Japan, Mexico City and Hong Kong.

Further information about Colortrac products can be found at:  www.colortrac.com

Expanding on the implications of these continued extraordinary results, Colortrac Executive Director Peter Brown noted that “Clearly our long term investments, both in competitive manufacturing at our factory at Suzhou, China and in our developments in SingleSensor technology (patents pending), are now providing us with greater capacity to react to our customers’ requirements in product quality, performance, functionality and value.  These financial results and our continued rapid growth in market share are a strong validation of our strategic product and business direction. It is providing a profitable base from which to continue our market expansion.”

Furthermore, Peter added “I am also delighted that our customers have seen the long term benefits of the quality, technical innovation and creative thinking we put into the SmartLF wide format scanners that we produce.  Customers understand how these technical initiatives produce features that can increase their business productivity and performance.  As a result, Colortrac has a strong order book which, combined with planned new product introductions, should provide us with continuing profitable growth in our business, even in this difficult economic climate.”

END

For further information contact:

Rob van Brakel,
Marketing Manager,
Colortrac Limited.
Tel: +44 (0)1480 464618
Email: press@colortrac.com
Web: www.colortrac.com

About Colortrac …
Founded in 1989 and based in St Ives, Cambridgeshire UK, a region of British excellence in science and technology, Colortrac Ltd is the leading innovator in professional wide format scanners and image acquisition software solutions with many new technically innovative patents created by their Research and Development departments, including the NEW SingleSensor scanning technology.

Colortrac was the first wide format scanner manufacturer to recognize the individual merits of both Charge Coupled Display (CCD), Contact Image Sensor (CIS) and will incorporate the newly introduced SingleSensor technology into some of their new SmartLF scanners.  Coupled with a full range of supporting SmartWorks software, they are creating unique customer solutions to simplify scanning problems across the full spectrum of applications.  These range from the demanding Graphics Arts market to practical, productive CAD, GIS, EDM and FM technical document scanning.

Colortrac Ltd Headquarters is located near Cambridge, UK and has offices in Beijing and Suzhou – P.R. China, Chantilly and Virginia – USA, Yokohama – Japan, Mexico City and Hong Kong.

Further information about Colortrac products can be found at:  www.colortrac.com