Scan2CAD raster to vector eNewsletter - June 2005

"Men in small houses see great mountains and one day, if they keep their eyes fixed on them, they climb them."

From Thursday's Children, by Rumer Godden.

What's in this Newsletter

Scan2CAD v7.3 now available

We've released an updated version of Scan2CAD, v7.3. It includes the following additions:

  • Auto Deskew - deskew raster images with a single mouse click.
  • Simple and Adaptive Thresholding - dynamically convert grayscale and color raster images to black and white. By improving raster image quality this new feature can significantly improve vectorization results.
  • Support for Colortrac SmartLF scanners.
  • Faster, easier zooming with new Zoom Window and Zoom Extents icons.

If you are a registered user of Scan2CAD v7, you can upgrade to v7.3 free of charge - click here for more information.

If you are a registered user of Scan2CAD v6.1 or earlier, you can upgrade to v7.3 at the upgrade price - click here for more information.

You can see which version of Scan2CAD you have by going to the Help Menu then choosing About Scan2CAD.

Who's using it? - Paley Studios use Scan2CAD on giant St Louis Zoo metal sculpture

Paley Studios Ltd, the team behind celebrated American forged metal master sculptor Albert Paley, have used Scan2CAD to create hundreds of CAD files of animal and plant profiles for a giant new steel sculpture for the St Louis Zoo. The profiles will be cut from Cor-Ten plate steel using CNC plasma technology.

To preview this major new American sculpture, click here.

Master forged metal sculptor Albert Paley has completed over 50 major corporate and civic commissions since 1974. His inventive approach to form development and metal technique was recognized by the American Institute of Architects who awarded him the coveted Institute Honors Award in 1995 for his groundbreaking work in the integration of art and architecture.

Two notable examples of Paley's work are the "Renwick Gates" for the Smithsonian National Museum of American Art in Washington, DC, and a 65-foot-sculpture for the entry court of Bausch and Lomb's headquarters in Rochester, NY. Examples of his work can also be found in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NY and the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.

Paley Studios Ltd is based in Rochester, NY, and employs 12 full-time people including fabricators, project planners, archivists and administrators. Albert Paley produces the designs and takes an active role in the construction and erection of his sculptures. The current project is a 100 ton Cor-ten steel sculpture for the St Louis Zoo, St Louis, MO, which will be 125 feet in length, 32 feet tall and 10 feet wide.

The initial proposal for the St Louis Zoo project included a complete scale model constructed in cardboard.

The finished piece will feature over 600 elements that include aquatic and land animals, birds and vegetation cut from Cor-Ten hot rolled plate steel in various thicknesses, from as thin as .25 inch for animal details to 1.5 and 2 inches thick for animal profiles and plant leaves. In order to create the forms represented by the artist the work is hydraulically formed and heat bent prior to welding.

"Our normal construction procedure starts with a representative drawing which is broken down into drawings of each element. These are then transferred to cardboard to construct a scale model. Patterns are then developed which are sent to our steel supplier to be traced on the burn table with a laser eye, then burned out of the plate steel using conventional CNC plasma technology" said project manager Robert Chan.

Paley Studios recognized the inefficiency of working with paper patterns and decided that the use of AutoCAD to duplicate hand sketches would offer significant benefits. As CAD files the patterns can be scaled up or down as required, then cut directly without the need for tracing, a cost-saving. But first they had to get the hand sketches into AutoCAD for editing. This is where Scan2CAD provided a practical solution.

Chan found Scan2CAD after trying other products and services with varying degrees of success. "Scan2CAD seemed to do the best job of converting our TIFF files to vector DXF. We hired an AutoCAD technician to this position and he learned Scan2CAD very quickly" said Chan.

Paley Studios had two requirements. First, the DXF files had to be an almost exact match to the artist's scanned hand sketch; second, the converted hand sketches should need as little tidying-up in AutoCAD as possible. This was achieved by first creating good quality raster scans of the hand sketches and then following a set conversion procedure in Scan2CAD.

"Our ability to integrate Scan2CAD scanning and raster to vector conversion technology with AutoCAD has developed time and cost saving factors which Paley Studios will use well into the future" said Chan. "Using this new CAD technology in-house we have greatly increased our flexibility and control over our patterns. Now, each piece can be burned exactly to our specification from the CAD file, or easily modified without having to create a new paper pattern or pay for time on the burn table for tracing".

Paley Studios are now close to completing the pattern phase. A significant benefit from their use of Scan2CAD and AutoCAD is that in addition to supplying their steel supplier with full-size patterns to burn they can now quickly resize these to produce a Cor-ten steel scale model of whatever they are constructing.

The St Louis Zoo sculpture will be unveiled in May or June 2006.

For further details on Paley Studios Ltd see
http://www.albertpaley.com

Xerox UK select Scan2CAD software for new 6000 series wide format image acquisition

Scan2CAD has been selected by Xerox UK as the software they will recommend for document and drawing image acquisition from the new Xerox 6000 series of wide format printer with integrated scanner.

The Xerox 6030 and 6050 Wide Format Solutions consolidate the functions of several devices into one compact footprint. The Xerox 6050 will print up to nine A1 black and white copies per minute at 600 x 1200 dpi while concurrently scanning black and white images at 600 x 600 dpi.

The Xerox 6000 series scanner supports TWAIN, a standard image acquisition protocol for communication between software applications and scanners. After evaluating several products Xerox UK are recommending Scan2CAD for scanning with the Xerox 6000 series. Scan2CAD supports TWAIN fully.

"Since the launch of the 6030 and 6050 multi-functional devices we have been looking for the ideal software to support scanning on the printer's integrated scanner" said Richard Cloot, Xerox UK Wide Format Manager. "Scan2CAD provides a powerful software solution which fulfills all of our requirements, including full support of TWAIN, at a very affordable price".

Dave Ham, Dealer Pre-Sales Analyst, Xerox (UK), was responsible for evaluating Scan2CAD and the other scanning programs. Scan2CAD's speed of acquiring the scanned image was one factor that impressed him.

"Scan2CAD perfectly complements our new Xerox 6030 and 6050 devices to fulfill the scanning requirements of our customers. A host of TWAIN functions are available for capturing the best image from the scanner. An abundance of Scan2CAD features to enhance, edit and convert images will ensure customers realise the full benefits of scanning documents. When reprinting the scanned image, the quality was excellent" said Ham.

Steve Hannath, marketing director of Softcover International Ltd, said "Xerox are a global document market leader acknowledged for providing solutions that enhance business productivity. Xerox creates satisfied and loyal customers by using technology to deliver market leadership, by delivering quality and by providing excellent value. The fact that Xerox UK now recommend Scan2CAD as a software solution to their resellers and users is a powerful endorsement of the capabilities of our low cost raster to vector converter".

For information on the Xerox 6000 series of Wide Format Solutions see
http://www.xerox.com

Quick tip - create better quality raster images with Scan2CAD's new thresholding functions - and get better conversion results!

Instead of creating a black and white raster image by scanning using your scanner's monochrome settings, try scanning your drawing in grayscale then converting it to black and white using Scan2CAD v7.3's new thresholding functions.

When you scan a drawing in monochrome your scanner or scanning software has to make a decision about which parts of the drawing to set to black in the raster image and which to set to white.

If your drawing is clean and sharp this is not normally a problem. However if your drawing has faint lines or a dirty or tinted background you will have to experiment with your scanner's settings until you get a raster image where, as far as possible, the parts of the raster image that are supposed to black are black and the parts that are supposed to be white are white.

If your scanner or scanning software sets too much of the drawing to white, it may contain breaks and holes and faint parts may be lost. If your scanner or scanning software sets too much of the drawing to black, text characters may "bleed" so that white spaces within them or between them become filled and speckles and dirt may appear in the background.

Many people don't experiment with their scanner's settings and simply scan with their scanner's default settings. As a result they often end up with poor quality black and white images that are unsuitable for raster to vector conversion.

Scan2CAD's new thresholding functions work dynamically to convert grayscale and color raster images to black and white. Because they work dynamically you can see which parts of the image are being set to white and which are being set to black as you are thresholding, so you can quickly get the clearest possible image on the cleanest possible background.

This means that instead of experimenting with your scanner's settings until the black/white blance of your raster image is optimal, which may involve scanning the drawing several times, you can now scan the drawing once, in grayscale, and convert it to monochrome with Scan2CAD's thresholding functions.

See Scan2CAD's Help for more information on its thresholding functions and how to use them.

And finally ...

A mechanical engineer, an electrical engineer, and a software engineer are in a car that breaks down.

The mechanical engineer says: "Maybe it's a stuck valve."
The electical engineer says: "Maybe it's a dead battery."
The software engineer says: "Maybe we should all get out and get back in again and see if that fixes it."