Scan2CAD raster to vector eNewsletter - December 2008

Wishing all of you a very Merry Christmas and or Happy Holidays, and a Happy, Healthy and Prosperous 2009!

"Nobody can go back and start a new beginning, but anyone can start today and make a new ending." - Maria Robinson.

What's in this Newsletter

Current version

The current version of Scan2CAD is v7.6i.

If you are a registered user of Scan2CAD v7, you can upgrade to v7.6i free of charge - click here for more information.

If you are a registered user of Scan2CAD v6.1 or earlier, you can upgrade to v7.6i 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.

Scan2CAD reduced US dollar prices - but hurry!

Anyone buying Scan2CAD on our website is charged in UK pounds. At the moment the UK pound is very weak. Back in July, one pound was worth two US dollars. Now, it is hovering at around 1.5 dollars - its lowest for over five years.

This means that if you live in the USA - or virtually anywhere else in the world except the UK, for that matter - there's never been a better time to buy Scan2CAD, a Scan2CAD upgrade, additional Scan2CAD licenses or a Scan2CAD / PDF2CAD bundle.

For example, a Scan2CAD v6 Pro to v7 Pro upgrade, normally priced at 194 dollars is now available for 156 dollars.

Scan2CAD Regular, normally priced at 298 dollars is now available for 239 dollars.

Scan2CAD Pro, normally priced at 498 dollars is now available for 399 dollars.

A Scan2CAD Pro / PDF2CAD bundle, originally priced at 590 dollars is now available at 499 dollars.

Buying now means savings of anything between 30 and 100 dollars - but you need to act soon! We've read that analysts expect the pound to strengthen again by the year end.

Raster to vector glossary

We are often asked about the meaning of words and acronyms such as OCR and TWAIN (see our And finally ... at the bottom of this newsletter!) and so we've now produced a raster to vector glossary. It can be found here:

Raster to vector glossary

We hope it helps.

If you can think of any additional words we should add to our glossary, please email us.

Who's using it? - Scan2CAD in Archaeology Part II

Irish archaeologists use Scan2CAD to document Iron Age trackway

Aisling Mulcahy, a project manager and GIS technician for an Irish archaeological company, has evaluated several automatic raster to vector converters. She described Scan2CAD as "the best" of the vectorization programs which she had looked at. However, she still required some further advice to questions she had about using it more effectively with her hand-drawn plans. Most of these had been produced on-site, often in damp or poor weather conditions. In Ireland, she says "we have a phrase - 'workable rain'. You can imagine what this means ..."

Click here to read about how Scan2CAD vectorized parts of an impressive piece of pre-historic, Celtic civil engineering, an Iron Age wooden trackway across the bogs.

If you are a Scan2CAD user and would like to showcase your business in our newsletter and on our web site please email us.

Scanners4CAD - large format scanner news, views and buying advice

www.scanners4cad.com

The Scanners4CAD large format scanner comparison chart has been updated with the latest new scanner from Colortrac - the SmartLF Ci 40.

The chart lists over 48 different large format scanner models. It includes UK and US list prices, type of paper feed, imaging system used, illumination used, color capability, scan width, maximum media thickness, optical resolution, scan speed, accuracy, upgrade options, Energy Star compliance, connectivity, networkability, supported operating systems, weight, dimensions, supplied warranty details and country of manufacture for each model.

Click here to receive the latest version of the Scanners4CAD large format scanner comparison chart.

Other recent news items and articles at Scanners4CAD are ...

TRAINING: The importance of large format scanner training!

NO BULL: Phew! Some issues that need cleaning up! Scan Speed

COOL NEWS: Colortrac's innovative SmartLF Ci 40 large format scanner ships

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Quick tip - removing text

We were recently asked by a user about removing text from an image. There are two ways to do this:

  • Remove the text before vectorization, by despeckling the image. However, this is only practical on drawings where there are no items that are smaller than the text, that might get removed along with it.

  • Vectorize the image using the ALL option, which vectorizes drawing lines and recognizes text using OCR. Then, go to the Run Menu and choose Undo OCR. This will remove the text while leaving all the vectorized lines intact!

If you have a Scan2CAD tip you would like to share, please email us.

And finally ...

TWAIN is a means of communication between imaging devices like scanners and software applications. If you have a scanner and it is "TWAIN compliant", you can use it to scan directly into any software application that supports TWAIN, like Scan2CAD. This means that after you scan, the scanned image will appear in Scan2CAD already open. (If your scanner is not TWAIN compliant, you need to scan using your scanner's supplied software, save to file (e.g. TIFF), then load the file into Scan2CAD as a separate action.)

Canadian Scan2CAD user Marc Lévesque recently emailed us the following explanation of the word TWAIN which he found in The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (http://foldoc.org/, Editor Denis Howe):

"The word 'twain' is an archaic form meaning 'two'. It appears in Kipling's 'The Ballad of East and West' - '...and never the twain shall meet...', reflecting the difficulty, at the time, of connecting scanners and personal computers. It was up-cased to TWAIN to make it more distinctive. This led people to believe it was an acronym, and then to a contest to come up with an expansion. None were selected, but the entry 'Technology Without An Interesting Name' continues to haunt the standard."

Thanks, Marc!