The growth in Colortrac
large format scanner shipments is testimony to a healthy, sustainable
market achieved through increasing market share, expansion of distribution
channels in to new countries and the development of new customers for
wide format scanning and copying who previously could not justify such
an investment.
Peter de Winter-Brown - SALES & MARKETING DIRECTOR, Colortrac Ltd
Peter de Winter-Brown - SALES & MARKETING DIRECTOR, Colortrac Ltd
Colortrac
SmartLF scanner unit sales grow by 44% in the fiscal year ended April 30th
2007
ABOVE
: A page from the new blog
BLOG - After much
talk about doing it, Colortrac has finally launched its own blog.
You can find the blog at the normal Colortrac web address /blog or
use this link - www.colortrac.com/blog
If you are not familiar with a blog it allows you to have your say online.
You can write about the product, the exhibitions you have attended or
exhibited at, your experiences with our scannersor or really any subject
you like. All submissions have to be related to scanners and Colortrac
business and are carefully moderated(checked) before being allowed onto
the site. Used properly the blog should be an efficient way to keep
everyone informed about recent Colortrac events and for you to get in
touch with us. You can think of it as your online newspaper. "Go
on, get blogging!"
We
have a Blog!
The relatively new
addition to the SmartLF range the Gx 25 'not-so large' large format scanner
began shipping in March this year, with strong sales quickly developing
into the US and Russia. The Gx 25 and GxT 25 units are similar to
the Gx 42 units but instead use 3 not 5 CCD cameras at the heart of their
600 dpi optical system.
Measuring a very portable 114cm (45") in width, the SmartLF Gx 25 / GxT 25 just like its bigger brother the Gx 42 scanner, enjoys the full complement of SmartLF stand accessories. The Gx 25 can be desk mounted, used on its Floor Stand (P005320) or mounted on the Universal Repro Stand (P005322). The basic floor stand can upgraded with the Paper Catchment Option (P005323) and the PC & LCD Monitor Mounting Option (P005301) or either one of these separately according to the specific customer's needs.
http://www.colortrac.com/scanners/scanner_accessories-gx25.htm
Measuring a very portable 114cm (45") in width, the SmartLF Gx 25 / GxT 25 just like its bigger brother the Gx 42 scanner, enjoys the full complement of SmartLF stand accessories. The Gx 25 can be desk mounted, used on its Floor Stand (P005320) or mounted on the Universal Repro Stand (P005322). The basic floor stand can upgraded with the Paper Catchment Option (P005323) and the PC & LCD Monitor Mounting Option (P005301) or either one of these separately according to the specific customer's needs.
http://www.colortrac.com/scanners/scanner_accessories-gx25.htm
Published
by the Sales & Marketing Department, Colortrac Ltd, England UK E&OE,
all rights reserved 01/06/2007 Tel: 00 44 (0)1480 464618 Web:
www.colortrac.com News or
comment / items for inclusion? Please send to newsletter@colortrac.com
Some
useful Links
SmartLF downloads - www.colortrac.com/smartdownloads Gx 42 - http://www.colortrac.com/scanners/gx42_range.htm
SmartLF downloads - www.colortrac.com/smartdownloads Gx 42 - http://www.colortrac.com/scanners/gx42_range.htm
WINDOWS
VISTA OPERATING SYSTEM CONSIDERATIONS
SmartLF Cx 40, SmartLF GxT 42, Gx 42, GxT 25 & Gx 25
Colortrac recommends Pentium 4 HT (Hyper-Threading), Core Duo, Core 2 Duo or AMD Athlon Dual Core processors, a computer RAM memory of at least 512MB, a USB2 hardware interface, Windows™ Vista operating systems, Windows™ XP Home, Windows™ XP Professional (32-bit version) and Windows™ XP Professional (64-bit version).
SmartLF Cx 40, SmartLF GxT 42, Gx 42, GxT 25 & Gx 25
Colortrac recommends Pentium 4 HT (Hyper-Threading), Core Duo, Core 2 Duo or AMD Athlon Dual Core processors, a computer RAM memory of at least 512MB, a USB2 hardware interface, Windows™ Vista operating systems, Windows™ XP Home, Windows™ XP Professional (32-bit version) and Windows™ XP Professional (64-bit version).
SmartLF
scanner drivers are downloaded as a single zip file for each scanner model.
Inside the zip is support for 32-bit Pentium and 32-bit AMD architectures
as a single file and AMD 64-bit and Intel 64-bit in two other separate
files.
1. Windows™ Vista can be installed as a 32-bit or a 64-bit operating system. SmartLF scanners will function with the 32-bit version of the Windows Vista operating system on a 32-bit or a 64-bit computer, however the 64-bit version of Windows Vista operating system WILL NOT work without the 64-bit Colortrac SmartLF scanner driver.
2. 64-bit scanner drivers should not be used with 32-bit installations of Windows™ Vista
NOTE: Colortrac has is discovering that many 64-bit computers are being shipped with 32-bit versions of Microsoft Windows™ Vista. This is probably a move to reduce possible support issues where owners may have difficulty obtaining 64-bit drivers for the still quite new 64-bit operating system.
1. Windows™ Vista can be installed as a 32-bit or a 64-bit operating system. SmartLF scanners will function with the 32-bit version of the Windows Vista operating system on a 32-bit or a 64-bit computer, however the 64-bit version of Windows Vista operating system WILL NOT work without the 64-bit Colortrac SmartLF scanner driver.
2. 64-bit scanner drivers should not be used with 32-bit installations of Windows™ Vista
NOTE: Colortrac has is discovering that many 64-bit computers are being shipped with 32-bit versions of Microsoft Windows™ Vista. This is probably a move to reduce possible support issues where owners may have difficulty obtaining 64-bit drivers for the still quite new 64-bit operating system.
Sindo
Computer - Sindo are not entirely new to Colortrac because a few
years ago they approached Colortrac with a view to distributing the
high-end Anatech and Eagle range of scanners. With SmartLF Cx
40 and Gx 42 doing well it was time for a fresh start in Korea. Within
months they had signed an old Contex distributor who has been actively
promoting Colortrac even before receiving a demo unit. Sindo
were also very quick to translate the various brochures and user manuals
for Cx and Gx scanners and have attended sales events and received the
necessary service training. Sindo show strong signs of being a
really valuable partner in our expanding Colortrac scanner business
in Asia. We wish them well.
ABOVE:
This exhibition was the KM-EDMS
(Knowledge Management-Electronic Document Management System) Conference
which attracted over 800 people.
Our man at Sindo Computer is Sungkun Yoo.
Our man at Sindo Computer is Sungkun Yoo.
Sindo
Computer is a $5M privately owned company distributing a carefully selected
group of products in the IT and imaging sector.
LEFT: Here they are at the COEX Convention Centre in Seoul, Korea in April 2007 where they exhibited the Colortrac SmartLF Gx 42 running with ScanWorks.
LEFT: Here they are at the COEX Convention Centre in Seoul, Korea in April 2007 where they exhibited the Colortrac SmartLF Gx 42 running with ScanWorks.
New
distributor signed - SINDO COMPUTER, KOREA
Colortrac
SmartLF Gx Range of scanners selling well
April
2007 - CopySmart now has an internal driver for the Canon iPF8000
wide format inkjet printer. This printer is a little unusual because
it actually has red, green and blue inks which make up the set of 12 LUCIA
pigment inks - 6 on each side of the printer. Other inks used in
this machine are black, matt black, grey, photo gray, photo magenta and
photo cyan as well as the regular yellow, magenta and cyan.
Designed primarily for Photography, Fine Art, Poster and Sign Making the iPF8000 is a pigment ink system that produces stunning 44 prints that can't fail to turn heads.
www.colortrac.com/smartdownloads
Designed primarily for Photography, Fine Art, Poster and Sign Making the iPF8000 is a pigment ink system that produces stunning 44 prints that can't fail to turn heads.
www.colortrac.com/smartdownloads
Canon
iPF8000 driver released
May
2007 - Colortrac have been experimenting with CopySmart to develop
an interface for a spectrophotometer. It is hoped that using a high
accuracy device like the spectrophotometer will improve the colour accuracy
beyond what is achievable currently with the scanner.
Background. At the moment with CopySmart the program produces a scanner calibration from the IT8 target and then builds the scanner ICM profile. The printer/media targets output from the printer can then be interpreted using the scanner to generate the printer/media ICM profiles.
The Colortrac Gx Range of scanners are excellent CCD scanners but they are no match for the quality from a professional colour spectrophotometer. Once the interface is built into CopySmart any company that has a spectrophotometer or has access to one will be able to use it to scan the printer/media targets and so increase dramatically the accuracy of the ICM profile used by the printer.
The first release of copySmart with support for the Gretag-Macbeth Eye-One spectrophotometer is hoped to be available for shipping sometime in July 2007.
Of course for those who do not have access to a spectrophotometer the existing profiling system will still be there and remeber this has been improved in the latest 1.3G2 release by adding ink linearisation. Support for other spectrophotometers from different manufacturers may be added at a later date depending on how the Eye-One is received.
Background. At the moment with CopySmart the program produces a scanner calibration from the IT8 target and then builds the scanner ICM profile. The printer/media targets output from the printer can then be interpreted using the scanner to generate the printer/media ICM profiles.
The Colortrac Gx Range of scanners are excellent CCD scanners but they are no match for the quality from a professional colour spectrophotometer. Once the interface is built into CopySmart any company that has a spectrophotometer or has access to one will be able to use it to scan the printer/media targets and so increase dramatically the accuracy of the ICM profile used by the printer.
The first release of copySmart with support for the Gretag-Macbeth Eye-One spectrophotometer is hoped to be available for shipping sometime in July 2007.
Of course for those who do not have access to a spectrophotometer the existing profiling system will still be there and remeber this has been improved in the latest 1.3G2 release by adding ink linearisation. Support for other spectrophotometers from different manufacturers may be added at a later date depending on how the Eye-One is received.
CopySmart
to get GM Eye-One spectrophotometer support in addition to the scanner
for its colour profiling
Intel®
Core™ Duo Processors
Dual-Core
Itanium® 2
It's official!
A Dual-Core processor computer architecture is just as good as a Hyper-Threading
for our Windows SmartLF scanner driver.
The more recent DUAL CORE and CORE-DUO processors should be considered as the replacement for Hyper-Threaded chip technology and provide very similar performance benefits for SmartLF. Our documentation is being updated to cover these changes.
The more recent DUAL CORE and CORE-DUO processors should be considered as the replacement for Hyper-Threaded chip technology and provide very similar performance benefits for SmartLF. Our documentation is being updated to cover these changes.
AMD
Athlon™ 64 X2 Dual-Core Processor
DUAL
CORE (AMD) & CORE-DUO (INTEL) - PROCESSOR TALK
AMD
Athlon™ 64 Processor
HEADLINE
NEWS
ABOVE:
A Colortrac SmartLF scanner sits in pole-position at the main entrance
to the BAIT EXPO in Sofia.
Another
word from Georgi Vassilev.....
"Atlascom have put in a lot of work to win this contract including developing an addition to ScanWorks so that the operator can 'click' the scan-button by pressing a foot-pedal. However Atlascom recognise that they could not have won the contract without the support of Colortrac!"
"Atlascom have put in a lot of work to win this contract including developing an addition to ScanWorks so that the operator can 'click' the scan-button by pressing a foot-pedal. However Atlascom recognise that they could not have won the contract without the support of Colortrac!"
ABOVE:
At the opening of the EXPO, Atlascom were pleased to receive a visit from
Mrs Maria Kapon. Mrs Kapon - a Bulgarian Deputy, is the leader of
the Bulgarian Delegation in the European Parliament.
ABOVE:
Georgi Vassilev with the Chairman of BAIT - Mr. Zlatko Zlatkov.
BAIT EXPO 2006 was opened by the Vice Prime Minister Mr Ivailo Kalfin
and the Chairman of the State Agency for Information Technologies and
Communications - Mr. Plamen Vachkov.
News
from the Distributors - ATLASCOM
BAIT
2006 - "For us BAIT
EXPO was really successful and we will participate again next year for
sure. I believe that this exhibition popularizes our company and our partners
brands and also strengthens our relations with our partners. We will start
immediately preparation for the next BAIT EXPO and we will rely on your
support again!
I believe we will continue to develop our co-operation faster and bigger!"
A quotation from Georgi Vassilev, director of Atlascom in 2006
And in April 2007 they had some very good news for us.....
"Today Atlascom (Sofia, Bulgaria) signed the contract with the Ministry for Social Welfare for Bulgaria. This means that the ministry is going to order 13 of Cx 40c scanners over 12 months"
Well done to everyone at Atlascom!
I believe we will continue to develop our co-operation faster and bigger!"
A quotation from Georgi Vassilev, director of Atlascom in 2006
And in April 2007 they had some very good news for us.....
"Today Atlascom (Sofia, Bulgaria) signed the contract with the Ministry for Social Welfare for Bulgaria. This means that the ministry is going to order 13 of Cx 40c scanners over 12 months"
Well done to everyone at Atlascom!
Kevin
Zheng, Quality Assurance Manager. Kevin is a qualified engineer
with valuable manufacturing experience and also has good English. Kevin
will work closely with the Chinese mechanical engineers and Graham Haward
who is based at Colortrac Assembly & Test Facility at St Ives in the
UK. Colortrac aims to continually improve scanner quality as well
as reducing the time to make each scanner.
Kevin reports to Graham Tinn in the UK
Kevin reports to Graham Tinn in the UK
Stephen
Li, 29 Engineering Manager (Suzhou). Stephen has a degree
in electronics and will be responsible for improving and maintaining
a high level of communications between the scanner design side originating
from the UK and China and the mechanical and electrical manufacturing
services carried out in Suzhou. Stephen is fluent in English and
one of his early tasks will be to recruit more software staff in China
who will undertake extensive software and firmware testing for all new
and existing products. Stephen reports to Andrew Cullum in the UK.
The Colortrac
Imaging Systems (Suzhou) Co, Ltd. facility in Suzhou P.R.China.
Stephen
Li - Engineering Manager
Two
new specialists join Colortrac, Suzhou
Kevin
Zheng -Quality control
Tech
and Training Talk
Those
annoying marketing terms.....
Dual
2D-Adaptive modes, whereas we say 2D Intelligent Adaptive thresholding.
The word dual is used to emphasize the 2D i.e. in two planes, foreground and background processing. Colortrac has 2D Intelligent Adaptive Thresholding which is visibly more efficient than the Contex system even though it may not sound as impressive.
3x3 Matrix Multiplier
These are involved (but simple to achieve with programming) mathematical operations or matrices, used to convert scan data to another colour space. Colour management systems like CopySmart use these.
NTSC Color Space
From the TV world. Contex NTSC scans are dull to simulate viewing in a dim environment - i.e. as you would sometimes watch a television. Presumably it's there for customers who wish to make scans which are only ever viewed on a monitor i.e. not reprinted out on a printer. We don't use it as it leads to confusion. It's likely most Contex customers don't use it either.
Color Rendering Index CRI>95
A method for describing the effect of a light source on the color appearance of objects, compared to a reference source of the same color temperature (CCT). The highest CRI attainable is 100. Typical cool white fluorescent lamps have a CRI of 62. Lamps having rare-earth phosphors are available with a CRI of 80 and above. Our lamps are high-efficiency long-lasting, low mercury lamps with a CRI of 85 which is adequate for correct document illumination.
Torsion stabilized optics
This type of system is not necessary in SmartLF Gx scanners because they use a very different compact camera assembly. The previous Series 4e scanners from Colortrac used a 3-point system similar to the three legs on a milking stall - a very old, but extremely effective stabilisation system.
The word dual is used to emphasize the 2D i.e. in two planes, foreground and background processing. Colortrac has 2D Intelligent Adaptive Thresholding which is visibly more efficient than the Contex system even though it may not sound as impressive.
3x3 Matrix Multiplier
These are involved (but simple to achieve with programming) mathematical operations or matrices, used to convert scan data to another colour space. Colour management systems like CopySmart use these.
NTSC Color Space
From the TV world. Contex NTSC scans are dull to simulate viewing in a dim environment - i.e. as you would sometimes watch a television. Presumably it's there for customers who wish to make scans which are only ever viewed on a monitor i.e. not reprinted out on a printer. We don't use it as it leads to confusion. It's likely most Contex customers don't use it either.
Color Rendering Index CRI>95
A method for describing the effect of a light source on the color appearance of objects, compared to a reference source of the same color temperature (CCT). The highest CRI attainable is 100. Typical cool white fluorescent lamps have a CRI of 62. Lamps having rare-earth phosphors are available with a CRI of 80 and above. Our lamps are high-efficiency long-lasting, low mercury lamps with a CRI of 85 which is adequate for correct document illumination.
Torsion stabilized optics
This type of system is not necessary in SmartLF Gx scanners because they use a very different compact camera assembly. The previous Series 4e scanners from Colortrac used a 3-point system similar to the three legs on a milking stall - a very old, but extremely effective stabilisation system.
A new section
for this issue of UPDATE. There are many strange marketing terms
that the competition throw in our way from time to time but these few
have kindly been identified by our Reprographics India distributor.
If you take a look you can quickly see from the explanation that most
of them do not apply to SmartLF. Still, we hope you will find it
useful just in case one of these come up during a SmartLF demonstration.
April
2007 New printer drivers have recently been introduced enabling CopySmart
to direct print to the Mutoh RJ901 (24") and RJ900 (44") printers.
Direct printers, (not to be confused with Windows drivers) optimise paper
consumption (minimise it), guarantee a high-level of colour copying performance
and ensure that for users who need a 1:1 copy (and that's most people)
the copy is made at the same size as the original. CopySmart also
supports scaling, multiple copies, step-and-repeat, panelling and annotation.
All drivers are free and the latest CopySmart 1.3G2 version can be downloaded from: www.colortrac.com/smartdownloads/
All drivers are free and the latest CopySmart 1.3G2 version can be downloaded from: www.colortrac.com/smartdownloads/
NEW
Mutoh driver released
This provides
a means of demonstrating the use of CopySmart without the need for a license
dongle.
The latest
1.3G2 version of CopySmart includes CSAssist and can be accessed from
the Help or ? button in the application's main user interface. For
distributors and dealers wishing to use the package as a reference and
sales tool it can be used online or downloaded from the Colortrac distributor
pages reached from
www.colortrac.com/distributor/samdloads/login
www.colortrac.com/distributor/samdloads/login
May
2007 A completely new training package has been released to complement
the Colortrac copying software CopySmart. Until now the product
had a relatively limited amount of in-program help. Called CSAssist,
the package uses a mini browser interface and a set of screen capture
movies covering common configuration and program usage procedures.
The whole thing resembles an interactive web page.
SOFTWARE
NEWS - CopySmart 1.3G2
All SmartLF
scanners ship with a set-up CD that includes the Windows scanner driver
and the SmartLF multi-function software. In order for SmartLF multi-function
s/w to function correctly the host computer should have Microsoft .NET
(MSDN) installed to at least v2.0.
The CD shipped by Colortrac no longer includes a .NET redistributable installer because in most cases this is not needed. Microsoft Windows Vista™ installs .NET 3.0 automatically and most Windows XP Home and Windows XP Professional installations (if they are taking advantage of the Windows Automatic Update service) will already have .NET 2.0 installed. SmartLF users can upgrade their XP machines to .NET V3.0 but there is no technical or performance reason for doing this.
How to check the .NET level on your computer
Go to your computer's Control Panel and click Add New Software. Find the Microsoft .NET Framework entries and look for the highest version number. For Microsoft XP you will see something like the screen shot above. If you need to upgrade your computer's level of .NET you can download it from the following link: www.msdn2.microsoft.com/
The CD shipped by Colortrac no longer includes a .NET redistributable installer because in most cases this is not needed. Microsoft Windows Vista™ installs .NET 3.0 automatically and most Windows XP Home and Windows XP Professional installations (if they are taking advantage of the Windows Automatic Update service) will already have .NET 2.0 installed. SmartLF users can upgrade their XP machines to .NET V3.0 but there is no technical or performance reason for doing this.
How to check the .NET level on your computer
Go to your computer's Control Panel and click Add New Software. Find the Microsoft .NET Framework entries and look for the highest version number. For Microsoft XP you will see something like the screen shot above. If you need to upgrade your computer's level of .NET you can download it from the following link: www.msdn2.microsoft.com/
SmartLF
and Microsoft .NET Framework
