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ScanTastik
named Fujitsu Value Added Reseller of the Year for 2004,
ScanTastik named Canon Value
Added Reseller of the year for 2004-2005 and 2005-2006.
All of the responses are general (some humorous), call if you have a specific question.
Q. What's a raster image?
A. When you send a fax, your fax machine creates a raster image
file and transmits the file. Your fax machine is a small scanner. Most fax machines scan
at 50 or 75 dpi. A raster image is "viewable" and "editable". The
image has no intelligent data, for example no text "fonts", no entities that can
be changed from "circle" to "arc" etc. Typical file formats include
tif, pcx, cg4, rle, rlc, tga. TIFF stands for Tagged Image File Format. CALS is
the Government version of TIFF. This can be a CAL extension, a CG4
extension, or a TG4 extension. Note most raster editing programs (Paint Shop
Pro, Adobe Photoshop, Harvard Graphics etc. have size and/or pixel
limitations for display/editing. If your drawing is larger than 11x17" you
may not be able to use the aforementioned programs without great difficulty(
if at all) to edit your raster files.
See OUR raster editing software (this is a shameless
plug)
Q. What is a vector image?
A. If you work on a computer aided drafting program such as AutoCad or
Microstation, you are working with vector files. Vector files have intelligent data and
entities. You can "pick up" an arc and move it to another part of the drawing.
You can change the "font" style of the text. Each point on the drawing has a
computer coordinate of X and Y (3D adds Z). These are vectors. Typical vector file formats
include dwg, dxf, iges, and dgn. If you need to convert your scanned image into a vector
file then you need our raster to vector conversion software. (another shameless plug)
Q. What is DPI and what are the differences?
A. DPI stands for dots per inch. A scanner passes over a drawing and uses
200 dots in an inch to measure the Intensity of the reflection. A dot is either
black or white in a 2 bit image. In newer image formats such as JPEG and TIFF version 5.0
you can have a 24bit image. In this case, the camera in the scanner uses shades of grey
for each intensity. This is the same for color scanning. So, a 400 dpi scan has more dots
in each inch, and therefore more shades of grey or colors. This does not necessarily mean
that 400 dpi is a sharper image. See below.
Q. Why shouldn't I scan everything at 400 dpi?
A. Your fax machine "scans" at 75 dpi. Most people find that
sufficient. Standard industry scanning is done at 200 dpi. This is high enough to pick up
most specks on a drawing. A 300 dpi scan adds a smoother "edge" to lines, but
there is software available that can do the same task. Most people ask for 300 dpi scans
and then want them de-speckled, which in effect reduces the specks that the additional 100
dpi just picked up! Also, file size is greater than 2x that of a 200 dpi when you scan at
400 dpi. Finally, it also takes 2x as long or more to scan, so the cost is more.
Q. How much space do I need for my scans?
A. For a rule of thumb, 15,000 sheets of scanned 8.5x11 paper(200dpi) fit on ONE
compact disk (650MB). An E size drawing at 200 dpi is approximately 200KB or 200,000
bytes. Remember, the more black ink on the page, the larger the file. A 34x44" size
scan can be smaller in file size than a 11x17" size scan if the 11x17" contains
a lot of detailed print on it. Shaded regions are huge file size factors, as are pictures,
and thick black lines.
Q. Why shouldn't I buy a scanner and do it myself ?
A. You can, we'll sell you one. Depending on your needs, about $4,500 will get
you started. Visit our Section on scanners.
Q. I need 100,000 pages scanned by next week.
A. We get this request
about every other month. ScanTastik uses the most advanced equipment to scan documents,
however, the documents are never in the condition needed to automate the process. In a
perfect world, the documents would come in looking like a ream of new paper. In the
imaging world, the documents come in stapled, torn, dog-eared, folded and unsorted. These
conditions require document unassembled ($), scanning preparation($), manual scanning($),
and finally, reassembly($). It takes many more 'man hours' to get the documents to the
scanner and back into the box than it does to scan them, and time is money. If you want it
now, expect to pay for it. Also, on site in Boston is 150% of the cost of on site in St
Louis.
Q. I have these rolls of film with images on them.....How long
will it take??
A. And you want them on a disk. Fine, if you call us please know we will ask you
the following questions: Is it blipped (are there little notch marks between each frame),
is it 16mm or 35 mm film? ( is it about as wide as a dime or a quarter)
and how many frames are on each roll (how many feet long or how many wraps are there).
Each factor affects time.
Q. I have some aperture cards I need scanned, how long will it
take??
A. Same as above, do they have hollerith encoding
(little punched holes) on each card, do you want an index record (a list of what the
punched holes mean in English), do you want each image cropped? (cropping is cutting the
filming marks off of each image). Also, when the card was created a picture was taken at a
specific "reduction ratio" so it could fit on the film. If you don't have any
size in a column (punched holes at the RIGHT end of the card), do you have a
standard scale you want us to use? Answer those and your 'ballpark' price will become
smaller than Shea Stadium. Depending on production scheduling, 8,000 cards a week
per shift is
normal.
B. Hollerith coding is the punched holes on a card. Dual-purpose
cards have a certain region on each card where the data is to be placed
(punched). Since companies use different vendors to create the cards, they
may not all be punched to the same "template". This is important to
know ahead of time. If we cannot set up a template, then the whole
card becomes one line of text. In which case you'll need to edit, line by line,
each record to separate the fields. Or you can pay us.
Q. We have 5,000 pages we want to scan into Word Documents.
A. ScanTastik uses OCR software to convert the scanned image into a text
document, be it .DOC or .PDF extensions. We can create a full text search database. The
price depends on the amount AND type of document not just size. A technical manual
costs just as much as a legal document because they both have peculiar vocabularies which
delay editing. Tables and charts are hard to recreate. Handwritten documents are obviously
the most expensive. "Ours have a little of everything" .....so does the price.
Expect to send us samples for an accurate quote. Prices are HOURLY,
NOT PER PAGE. PER PAGE PRICES ARE HIGHER. Scanning pages, ocr'ing
pages are automated. Editing, correcting and cleaning are manual and therefore hourly.
Q. I need these as a PDF.
A. Which one?
Q. The one for Adobe acrobat.
No, which type of PDF?-- This takes a whole page so please follow this link.
Remember what you 3rd
grade teacher said:
"A smart person asks a question, a dumb person never asks"
Call us or email us if you have a question we're happy to help
