Scanning (was Re: recent acquisitions for the House of VAX

From: Clint Wolff <vaxman_at_qwest.net>
Date: Thu Sep 13 19:55:32 2001

Hi Tom,

I have a Bell&Howell 500FB 11x17 scanner with ADF that I a pretty
happy with. It'll do 400DPI native, and 600DPI interpolated, up
to 256 grayscale (no color). I've used it to scan a small number
of 11x17 schematics, and the results are reasonable, the main
problem is page skew. I've been working on a program to automatically
deskew pages (which works ok), and recenter the image in the page
(which doesn't). IIRC, I paid ~$1200US for it.

I also have a Microtek MRS-800AJ which is 11x17 color (i forget the
resolution) but flatbed only. This scanner is too slow to use for
any sort of document scanning. You will die of boredem waiting to
switch pages and start the next scan. I'm happy with the color
reproduction however. Lots cheaper, ~$600US.

Both are SCSI, which I consider to be a requirement because of the
amount of time required to transfer an image across USB. A zippy
machine to drive it (600MHZ/PIII) is also very desirable...

Clint

On Mon, 10 Sep 2001, Tom Uban wrote:

> I started looking for an 11x17 scanner (also called A3 or tabloid, from what
> I can gather). They are hard to find and I was wondering if you have
> suggestions
> for a quality flat bed scanner which can handle the larger format, but is not
> to pricey. The ones which I have found also appear to be SCSI, is OK, but
> would not be my first choice.
>
> --tom
>
> At 02:16 PM 9/10/01 -0700, you wrote:
> >This topic has gone over the list a few times, from experience, the "best"
> >scans are 600 DPI black and white compressed into PDF files. This achieves
> >exactly what is needed, get the data without a lot of excess. The KA655 TM
> >that is on the DFWCUG site appears from the PDF to be 100 DPI/8 bit (note
> >that's 800 bits per inch net and the result is harder to read) I'll add
> >scanning this manual to my list. They don't appear to have come up with a
> >'standard' for their scans. That would help too.
> >
> >--Chuck
> >
> >At 01:01 PM 9/10/01, you wrote:
> >> > However, someone decided to scan some of the manuals as low
> >> > resolution 8 bit grey scale (what a waste of someone's scanning time!)
> >>
> >>Do you mean low or high resolution? There's no need for 48 or even 16
> >>bit for anything not continuous tone. I got three manuals from DFWCUG
> >>and am very happy with the quality. Perhaps they could look into more
> >>efficient compression, though.
> >>
> >>John A.
> >
> >
>
>
Received on Thu Sep 13 2001 - 19:55:32 BST