🚀 go-pugleaf

We've been talking about purchasing a scanner capable of 24-bit
color and optical character recognition for a long time now.
Unfortunately, too long... now if we don't write an RPS in a
couple of days we lose our chance... 8-)

The two proposals we are looking at are:

(1) HP ScanJet IIc (400dpi, 8.5x14" bed, 20 sheet feeder)
(2) Howtek Scanmaster 3+ (1200dpi, 11.7x17" bed, no feeder)

Both of these systems would be bought as a package deal from
"Advanced Systems Group" and include ScanWorX character
recognition software and various image manipulation routines.
The Howtek is more than $5K more expensive than the HP.  (There
is nothing sacred about either proposal... if somebody has a better
idea, we'd love to hear it.)

I was wondering if anyone has experience with either of the
scanners or the software for OCR... could you mail me any
comments or experience you've had?

In general we will be using this system to scan reference material
(text and graphics from technical publications and color photographs
of experimental data) into our technical reports.

Can anybody provide general hints, tips, experiences that relate
to using scanners for this type of work?  I've got a lot of questions...
Is scanning dpi important if we are only going to produce output
on 300 or 400 dpi laser printers?  Is there any free implementations
of OCR that we could experiment with?  Does three-pass color
scanning provide better color than one-pass?  How well do sheet
feeders really work?  Do people use them less or more often than
expected?  Is a serial port connection acceptable speed?  Do we
need a bus connection?  Does the bed size make a difference for
scanning small sizes?  Can we cut/past images if we want to scan
something larger than the bed?

The platform of choice to connect the scanner to is currently a
Sun SparcStation, but we could use SGI or (gack!) a PC if they
offered superior solutions...

Please email and I'll summarize.  (This should really be in a FAQ
somewhere... is it?)

Thanks in advance.

-- 

Ken Fox (fox@pt0204.pto.ford.com)  | My opinions or statements do not
                                   | represent those of, nor are endorsed by,
                                   | Ford Motor Company.
CAD/CAM Technology Section         |
CAD/CAM/CAE Process Integration    | "Is this some sort of trick question
Ford Motor Company                 |  or what?" -- Calvin