Input solutions

LATEST SOFTWARE AVOIDS RE-SCANS

Kofax Image Products has unveiled a new package of scanning hardware and software designed to automatically correct and improve the quality of scanned images.

VirtualReScan (VRS) is said to eliminate the need to re-scan poor quality images; instead, the image is corrected or adjusted on screen, in real time.

VRS provides quality control through a 'monitoring agent' which resides in the PC and detects inferior images as they are scanned.

VirtualReScan (VRS) is said to eliminate the need to re-scan poor quality images; instead, the image is corrected or adjusted on screen, in real time.

The product includes greyscale deskew correction ability to 45 degrees, and can accelerate scanning to allow 200dpi speeds with 300dpi image quality, according to the company. The software can also auto-resolve errors at scan time, so physical faults with the pages, such as a folded corner, can be detected before they are scanned.

VRS further boasts an ability to dynamically detect, deskew, crop and correct an array of different document types within the one batch. There is also a capacity within the interface to allow manual intervention.

The software reportedly operates with any 32-bit application that supports Kofax Adrenaline boards; this includes capture applications from FileNET, Cardiff Software, and MicroSystems.

The monitoring agent is installed in the host hard disk and interacts with both an Adrenaline accelerator board, which also sits in the PC, and the greyscale scanner adaptor, which sits in the third party slot of a scanner.

Virtual ReScan follows on from the Kofax Ascent Capture, which is a broader package. This includes image processing, bar-code reading, and optical character recognition (OCR), by providing a set of point-and-click image processing tools to produce the best possible OCR results. These tools include despeckle, deskew, deshade, destreak, and character repair.

For more information about the Kofax range of products, visit www.kofax.com or contact Australian reseller ACA Pacific on (02) 9922 5333 or in Melbourne on (03) 9897 4733.

ENHANCED OCR & ICR SOFTWARE

ABBYY Software House has released a new version of its FineReader optical character recognition (OCR) software. Version 4.0 handles automatic input of texts, tables, forms, questionnaires, blanks and hand-printed characters in the computer with its OCR/ICR/OMR Series.

The newest editions of FineReader allow the product to handle colour images, and increase its recognition accuracy to one and a half to two times higher than version 3.0, the company claimed. The latest version can also recognise any mixed-language texts.

FineReader 4, which will be on display at IIM98, is available in six different packages. Light is a cut-down component to be bundled with scanner hardware; Standard recognises mixed-language documents in 40 supported languages, permits batch processing of mulitple documents, and can 'learn' new characters; Professional adds support for bar code recognition, and allows inputs from tables and forms directly into databases.

A specialised package for banks recognises payment drafts and variable forms such as balance sheets and invoices. FineReader Bank comes with Toolkit, which embeds FineReader into other systems via OLE Automation and 16- or 32-bit API interface. Toolkit is also available as a stand alone application which provides a bridge between FineReader and an existing database and acts as an OCR engine.

Handprint, the sixth package, recognises hand-written characters and numeric digits through ICR, making it suitable for cheques, receipts, applications and the like. This edition can input characters up to ten times faster than a typist with less than five mistakes per 1000 characters.

FineReader 4 runs on Intel-based multiprocessor servers; the parallel use of additional processors leads to a linear increase of recognition speed, which in turn reportedly raises productivity up to 100 per cent while raising cost by around 30 per cent, according to ABBYY.

FineReader 4 is available through TopSoft, the official distributor for ABBYY in Australia and New Zealand. The Light version also comes bundled with every new scanner from SCSI Corporation. FineReader Standard is $299, Professional is $799, Handprint is $2299, Toolkit Standard edition is $2199, and Bank edition, which comes with Toolkit built-in, is $4899 for three licenses. FineReader 4 trial CDs can be requested by contacting TopSoft on phone 02 9723 1958 or by email on sales@topsoft.com.au.