Large Format Scanners Key Terms

Familiarize yourself with large format scanner terminology before investing in a product

Large format scanners are becoming increasing popular in engineering and architectural firms. Large format scanners allow firms to scan engineering drawings, blueprints and plot into a digital format that they can archive or in terms of active projects, reference from ones desktop without having to leave their office. Benefits of electronic scanning include the preservation of documents, the elimination of staff misfiling or misplacing drawings and freeing up office space since file drawers and other archival storage devices are no longer necessary since documents will be stored in a digital library.

Reprography

Reprography is the process of reproducing documents utilizing wide format scanners, printers or photographic equipment into an electronic or hard copy format. Examples of documents that sent to reprographers include maps, engineering drawings, blueprints, and pictures.

Flatbed scanners

A flatbed, or desktop, scanner is one in which the user places the document directly onto the glass window, where it is then scanned and converted into a digital image. The quality of the digital image is dependent on the color or bit depth (the number of bits used for each pixel), resolution and density range of the scanner.

Large format scanners

A large format scanner can scan hard copy engineering and architectural drawings into an electronic format. Depending on the type of scanner, users may be able to process documents as large as 40 inches and as thick as half an inch. Engineering and architectural firms receive great benefit from large format scanners for it allows them to scan plans and other documents and store them on storage devices for archival purposes without taking up valuable office space.

Sheet fed scanners

A sheet fed scanner can only process paper and pictures instead of book and other thick documents. Depending on the model, sheet fed scanners can be portable. Sheet fed scanners differ from flatbed scanners in that it operates by moving the document across a stationary scan head versus the scan head moving across a stationary document.

Optical character recognition

Optical character recognition, more commonly known as OCR, is the process by which a scanner utilizing pattern recognition converts handwritten or typed text into a format that one can edit.

Digital library

A digital library is an organized storage of architectural and engineering drawings, documents and photographs electronically instead of in a hardcopy (paper) format that one may access from a computer. Images and documents contained in a digital library may be stored and accessed locally on a computer or remotely via the computer network.
PubMed Central provides information on digital libraries including how to manage your digital data.

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