IDEAL Newsletter - Volume 1 Issue 2

Alcan Aluminum Solves Document Management Problem, IDEAL ScanDEX Installed October 1999

Alcan Aluminum Limited of Canada is the parent company of an international group involved in all aspects of the aluminum industry overseeing operations with sales offices in over 30 countries. Established in 1902, it is a leading producer of primary metal and a global producer and marketer of rolled aluminum products.

Alcan had a classic document management problem. Alcan approached IDEAL Scanners & Systems, Inc. to help index and manage its 65,000 varied sized documents and drawings. Their inventory of documents ranged from standard sized word processed documents to large format engineering drawings of their equipment and cast dies.

Alcan discovered shortcomings with the Access database they were using. They were unable to locate and retrieve about 10,000 of their AutoCAD .dwg files that were created over the last decade. Additionally, another 5,000 to 10,000 of their text and spreadsheet documents were only in paper format. If a document was not on their network or identified in their database, they had to make a request from the storage room and have prints made for use.

IDEAL's ScanDEX provided Alcan with the proper document management solution. IDEAL sent Jeremy Cook, their ScanDEX Product Manager, to provide Alcan with installation and hands on training. ScanDEX is a customizable "killer application" and has the ability to utilize an add-in viewer, such as, Fast Look, Myriad, and Auto View. In order to customize ScanDEX for Alcan's specific needs, Cook asked how they were looking for their drawings under their old system and what other methods they would like to be able to locate their documents with ScanDEX. With Alcan's wants and needs in mind, IDEAL was able to customize ScanDEX for their new database. Alcan was already using Fast Look, a multi-format program viewer by Camel Soft. Cook customized the Scan DEX configuration to allow for some replication of their existing database and built in greater functionality by utilizing Fast Look to allow viewing of not only the raster files, but also other file formats. This feature is similar to Internet Explorer's ability to view .pdf files within the browser. "Training Alcan's staff was easy," said Cook, "since they were already accustomed to working with a database." ScanDEX proved to be the right solution because it joined their database with raster and launched an integrated viewer for greater functionality.

IDEAL tailored installation, configuration, and training to meet the specifications Alcan set forth. IDEAL worked closely with IT staff handing over the master CDs and the hardware documentation. Staff was provided with an overview on the proper maintenance and operation of their new IDEAL scanner. IDEAL provided small group training supplemented with the appropriate software documentation. Finally, IDEAL provided testing by scanning, indexing, and retrieving several of Alcan's drawings.

Nothing in this world is perfect or without error. The important question is: How big is the error? And, Can the error be tolerated? The smaller the error the easier it is to tolerate. Errors in raster images can arise from a number of sources.

Some think there are no errors in CAD drawings. In a CAD system you can typically specify a precision of up to 8 decimal places. (Generally CAD dimensions show only 3 or 4 decimal places but the data can be stored up to 8 decimal places) This is a very small error indeed but the point here is that it is not perfect, there are errors. While the drawing is in electronic or digital form it will retain its accuracy. Once it is plotted however the plotted drawing is subject to errors due to the printer the plotting media, and storage environment of the printed drawing. After printing there is no guarantee on the accuracy or precision of CAD drawing. It certainly is not as good as the electronic or digitally stored version.

Obviously hand drawn documents will have larger errors than CAD drawings. Typically, a carefully hand drawn E size drawing by a skilled draftsman can have errors on the order of say 0.050 to 0.100 inches. Sloppily drawn documents can have much larger errors. Unless a drawing was made or intended for layout purposes it generally does not need to be very dimensionally precise since it contains written dimensions which state precisely how large or small and the tolerance of a piece or part of the drawing is. A drawing in effect is just another language. Most drawings bear the caveat "Do not scale". Scaling is not a recommended way to obtain dimensions from a drawing. The written dimensions must be precise but the line work generally can not be since it is frequently beyond the capability of human draftsmen. Drawings that are intended to maintain their precision with age are generally drawn or plotted on stable materials such as 7 mil mylar. There is no guarantee on the precision of drawings made on bond paper since bond has a tendency to distort with age and storage environment.

A map just off the printing press has errors on the order of say 5 mils. Once a map is printed on bond or mylar, however, it is subject to all of the same errors discussed above for hand drawn drawings. Maps published by the government must comply with the United States National Map Accuracy Standards published by the "US" in 1947 and is still in effect as follows.

Since a raster drawing is obtained from a scan of a paper or mylar drawing or map it will have at least the same errors contained in the original. In addition the scanner may insert some of its own small scanning error. IDEAL Scanners have errors specified to be within 0.1% of the original.

All points on a raster drawing or map are subject to positional error for the above reasons. On a 20-inch by 30 inch map scanned at 300 dpi there are approximately 54 million points or pixels. I/Calibrate can reduce the positional error of all 54 million points on a raster drawing or map. Calibrating with I/Calibrate is interactive and semi automatic. Calibration is Easy and Fast.

The calibration process requires knowing "Point Pairs"

1.)The Source Point (where the source point actually is in the raster image).

2.)The Destination Point (where the raster point should be). On distorted raster maps, nodes of Longitude and Latitude that are supposed to fall on nodes of a rectangular grid may not. I/Calibrate generates a true grid from map information you give it. Destination Points are then nodes of the grid. Source Points are corresponding points on the distorted grid of the raster map. I/Calibrate provides a rapid interactive procedure for easily identifying all source points and destination points and goes to work using a variety of mathematical tools to move all of the points in the image to where they are supposed to be.

When a tornado ripped through Largo, Florida, one Saturday in the fall of 1992, it demolished Beckwith Electric Company, Inc.'s two story, steel girder-reinforced building. The destruction could have been even worse. Four employees, who were inside the building when the twister hit, were shaken but escaped injury. Also, in the only part of the building left standing, at the top of a stairwell, the company's engineering computer file server and engineering drawing file cabinets were still standing. The engineering drawings stored on the file server and the older, irreplaceable paper and vellum drawings were spared from damage.

After the disaster, Beckwith's staff began the task of rebuilding. Temporary facilities were acquired to house their operations. Beckwith's customers and suppliers adjusted delivery expectations and schedules. In addition, steps were taken to ready the company in case of future catastrophes.

Beckwith's management realized that it would not take another tornado to destroy or damage their only versions of the paper and vellum engineering drawings. Fire or smoke, theft, vandalism, human error, hurricanes, or flood could render the valuable documents useless.

How could they best ensure that these documents would remain safe should another disaster strike?

Image One, an authorized IDEAL reseller based in Tampa, FL and specializing in electronic document management, proposed scanning the drawings and storing them as raster images to indexed CD ROM disks. Beckwith accepted image one's plan for securing the drawings. Using an IDEAL large format engineering document scanner and IDEAL-CloudOS scanning software, Image One's document conversion staff scanned the drawings and enhanced each image by removing background shading and by de-speckling and deskewing them. Some of the documents were brown with age, and the drawing lines and print were difficult to distinguish. Removing the background shading significantly improved these drawings' readability. Each image was stored to CD ROM disk and indexed by drawing number, providing two field indexing of the version and date. Each image was stored to CD ROM disk and indexed by drawing number, version, and date with OTG, Inc.'s ApplicationXtender® and ReportXtender® software.

"I think some of the scanned drawings are easier to work with than the originals," observed Jack Hersey, Beckwith's Drafting/Design Manager. The drawings can be easily located using the drawing and version number on any CD-equipped computer workstation. They can be printed to the company's printers.

And, duplicate copies of the engineering drawings on CD are stored safely off site - just in case.

ApplicationXtender and DiskXtender registered trademarks of OTG Software, Inc.

Other brands and products are trademarks of their respective owners.

IDEAL Releases I/Vector 4.0 with Improved Recognition Features for Geometric Drawing Elements

October 18, 1999, Rockville, MD - IDEAL Scanners & Systems, Inc. released I/Vector 4.0, a fast, 32-bit raster to vector translator with many upgraded features that continues to make it the application of choice for CAD and GIS users. "I've compared a lot of raster to vector software packages and I/Vector is by far the best vectorization solution there is," said Jorge Sanchez of Sanchez and Associates in St. Louis, Missouri. "I/Vector earns full marks for its image clean up tools - everything is there from simple cropping through rubbersheeting," claims an independent third party software reviewer and critic.

The 4.0 version has improved recognition capabilities that recognize complex drawing elements including corners, crossing points, crossing straight lines and straight arcs. This improved recognition feature improves productivity because less editing of the image is required. As a result, users will produce smaller, higher quality CAD files for geometric entities. Of course, I/Vector 4.0 continues to intelligently recognize circles, arcs, symbols, OCR text at any angle, line styles, line widths, hatching, arrows, and area outlines for use in CAD, GIS, Technical Publishing, Product Data Management, and Engineering Data Management Systems -- standard features from earlier releases.

I/Vector 4.0 also minimizes clean up work in a CAD package because users can select measuring units and scale images before exporting the vectorization result to CAD. Finally, I/Vector 4.0 converts scanned raster images into several industry standard vector file formats. I/Vector 4.0 creates DXF (AutoCAD Drawing Exchange Format), DGN (MicroStation), DWF (AutoCAD Web Format) files and offers improved recognition features for geometric drawing elements.

In addition, I/Vector 4.0 has improved recognition qualities for mapping and GIS that will improve productivity. In I/Vector 4.0 there is automatic recognition of contours appearing in topographic maps, recognition of fine line widths due to automatic detection of their occurrence and considering touching points, as well as the tying of points on a drawing to a real world location. I/Vector 4.0 has also accelerated the import of raster files and added a "Clip" function that allows users to take a subset (cut) of the raster image and use it as a new drawing or map.

Just like previous versions, I/Vector 4.0 is designed around graphical user interfaces and is parameter driven so all functions are defined and controlled by the user. It contains raster editing tools for drawing clean up prior to vectorization, has an extensive on-line help system, and provides a message center to log conversion events for monitoring and billing purposes. I/Vector 4.0 runs under Windows 95/98/NT and can run in single or batch mode.

IDEAL integrates, markets, and supports a wide range of color and monochrome scanning solutions for large format drawings and technical documents including entire computer-driven scan to print solutions. IDEAL will be demonstrating I/Vector 4.0 at A/E/C SYSTEMS Fall in Chicago November 8 - November 11, 1999, as well as other upcoming tradeshows. I/Vector 4.0 sells for $3,995.00. For more information on I/Vector or a copy of the tiff image below, please contact Kathy Magenheim at (301) 468-0123 ext.1204 or contact via e-mail at kmagenheim@ideal.com.

November 15, 1999, Rockville, MD - Today, IDEAL Scanners & Systems, Inc. introduces a Macintosh interface, called WIDEcapture, for its 40" and 50" wide color scanners to Adobe's PhotoShop. WIDEcapture is designed to supply convenient, direct and problem-free access to 40" wide and 50" wide color scanning input while working with PhotoShop. This interface is designed as a PLUG-IN; meaning it can just be inserted into PhotoShop's plug-in folder and immediately access through the PhotoShop's interface.

WIDEcapture supports both Mac and Windows versions. For Mac users, this interface is a necessary link between IDEAL's 40" and 50" wide Color Scanners and Apple's Macintosh. For Windows users, this interface is a handy scanning interface specifically useful when working in PhotoShop. IDEAL's 40" and 50" wide color scanners were typically designed for color renderings and GIS applications, but with WIDEcapture, IDEAL can expand its vertical markets to the graphic arts industry. "In the past, the graphic arts industry was unable to perform color scan to print on 50" wide posters and signs because the technology was not available," states Jay Magenheim, president of IDEAL Scanners & Systems, Inc, located in Rockville, MD. "Today, the graphic arts industry can scan in a wide format color poster, make changes, and output it to any wide format plotter."

Mac users can easily scan wide format color documents directly to the PhotoShop interface. With WIDEcapture, Mac users full control over advanced scanning features on wide format documents and users have availability to PhotoShop's wide range of image manipulation options. There are convenient dialog boxes with full point and click control. A wide range of scanning modes enables the user to obtain optimal quality or even improve the quality in relation to the original. In addition, Mac users have the option in scanning in 36-bit color mode or monochrome mode depending upon their application. IDEAL's SuperWIDE50 color scanners support advanced 2-D adaptive thresholding that analyses the drawing while scanning, and varies the threshold to compensate for changes in background, faded areas, and stains.

The system requirements to run WIDEcapture are an Apple Macintosh Power PC computer and operating system, IDEAL's 40" or 50" wide Color Scanners and PhotoShop version 5.0 or higher. IDEAL's wide format color scanners with WIDEcapture start selling at $19,900 and range in resolution from 600 to 800 dpi.

IDEAL integrates, markets, and supports a wide range of color and monochrome scanning solutions for large format drawings and technical document including entire computer-driven scan to print solutions. IDEAL's scanning solutions include Scan to CAD, Scan to Index, Scan to CD, Scan to Print, and Scan to the Web. For more information on IDEAL's 40" and 50" wide Color Scanners supporting Macintosh or a copy of the tiff image below please contact Kathy Magenheim at (301) 348-0123 ext. 1230 or contact via e-mail at kmagenheim@ideal.com.

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