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B

Book
k Sca
anne
er Bu
uyerr´s G
Guid
de
Will Digital Camera
as Ever Replace
R Scanners
S rs?

This Book Scanner Buyer’s


B Guide is publiished by Im
mage Acces
ss, the worlddwide mark
ket leader in
n
the book scanner bussiness. Imag
ge Access produces various
v moddels of boook scanners
s as well ass
other scannners and has severa al decadess of experience in successfullyy developing scanning g
technologie
es.

The reader will undeerstand what to expe ect from va arious scan nning technnologies annd will also
o
understand
d what kind of results can
c be expe ected from a digital cam
mera. Manyy of the tech
hnical termss
and their e
explanation
ns can also o be verifie
ed in Wikippedia and other sourrces and we w explicitlyy
encourage the reader to verify our statementts.

© 2013 Imag
ge Access GmbH
G
Book Scann
ner Buyer’s Guide

Scannin
ng Books

Boook scanne ers are difffferent than


n any other
do
ocument sca anner becaause books do not havee
a flat surfacce. Mechaanically, bo ooks are a
ghtmare to
nig o handle aand if they y would bee
reinvented by y today´s eengineers, they wouldd
ome in an endless foorm like film
co m, probablyy
rolled into tw
wo small tuubes. If thiis were the
e
ca
ase, there would
w be noo need for a dedicated
d
bo
ook scannerr at all.

Unfortunate
ely, Johannes Gutenbe
erg did not tthink about scanners when
w he invvented book
ks in today´ss
form aboutt 600 yearrs ago therefore, it iss unavoidaable to fam
miliarize oneeself with the speciaal
mechanics of a book.

Although it is possible to scan a book


b on a fllatbed scan
nner by
pressing it flat againstt the glass plate, this can be dammaging
to the bookk’s spine annd is not reeally the rig
ght way to scan
s a
book. We h highly recommmend usin ng a book sscanner which will
scan an op pen book frrom above, the same w way you noormally
read it.

Various book cradle es and other suppo orts have been


developed all of whichh have their benefits an
nd disadvan ntages.
Because th he mechanical impacts on a boo ok are obviious to
everyone wwho sees a book scan nner physicaally, in a video or
even in a bbrochure, we
w have reffrained from m analyzing g these
aspects. Innstead we want to focus on the more subtle
features of book scanners, which h are also m
more vulnerable to
misleading or incorrecct informatio
on.

The book scanner market


m is dominated by three major ven ndors, Imag ge Access s, I2S and d
Zeutschel,, but many small com mpanies are e also trying to grab their
t share.. Unfortunaately for the
e
customer, ssome of theese companies claim very unrealistic speciffications forr their devic
ces and aree
raising expe
ectations ab
bove the lim
mits defined
d by today´s
s knowledgee of modernn physics.

In the last ccouple of years,


y somee vendors hhave mounted digital cameras on a stand an nd equippedd
with a scree en to compete with reaal book sca nners. Theyy also call their digital camera sys
stems “bookk
scanners”, which theyy are not be ecause a sccanner scan ns a docum ment and a digital cam mera takes a
picture. Thiis has lead to some level of confu e market and the intentt of this doc
usion in the cument is to
o
explain the e different techniques
t and their iimpact on image quality, book hhandling an nd expectedd
lifetime in a non-biased way.

The intentio
on of this Book
B Scanner Buyer’’s Guide is s to explain certain tecchnical term
ms and their
impact on qquality, spee
ed and handling of boook scanningg in an unbia
ased way. T The second d intention iss
to provide e
easy to use e measurem ment tools a
and tables to
t determine the resoluution, amou unt of pixelss
in the cameeras and othher factors necessary tto achieve the
t desired quality.

Page 2
Book Scann
ner Buyer’s Guide

Digital Camera
as

Digital cammeras use area CCDs s compriseed of many y extremely y small


pixels, whicch are coveered with a Bayer Patttern consis sting of two green,
one red an nd one blue e pixel arra
anged in a quadruple. This reduc ces the
resolution bby a factor of
o two for th
he green ch
hannel and by a factor of four
for the redd and blue channels. Their sma all size also
o increasess noise
compared tto linear linee sensors. These
T area
a CCD imag ge sensors are
a not
suitable forr scanners since
s they do
d not scan but rather, take picture
es.

The followin
ng diagrams show how
w a Bayer P
Pattern imag
ge from a digital camerra is genera
ated.

If a vendor claims tot offer a “s


scanner” w with a one shot camera, a matrixx camera or
o a chip,
it will mo
ost likely be
e an ordinaary digital c
camera moounted on an
a overpricced frame.

There is a an exception from a French


F boo
ok scannerr vendor. They
T are ussing a high h resolutionn
monochrom me sensor and
a take th hree expossures with different fiilters in froont of the se
ensor. Each h
exposure u uses all pixxels and affterwards thhey are coomposed to a full RG B image like all other
ordinary sccanners do. Since each w seconds, it must be aassured tha
h exposure takes a few at absolutelyy
no moveme ent of the object
o or the scanner camera is present, otherwise thee three ima ages will noot
match. The e best mode endor uses 140MPixel chips to ge
el of this ve et 600dpi reesolution on n an area of
o
DINA2.

The following diagram m shows how w a full RG


GB Image is
s composedd with threee exposuress taken withh
red, green and blue color filters. Only threee shot cam
meras with color
c filters have the same
s qualityy
as scannerrs with line sensors.
s

It is possib
ble to achievve good results with t his technique, provide
ed that the book is com
mpletely fla
at
which implies that it is pressed ag
gainst a glasss plate.

A digital camera is designed to take pic


ctures of ob
bjects at va
arious disttances, som
me being
in focus other being out of focus. A dig
gicam is noot designedd to replacee a scanne
er.

Page 3
Book Scann
ner Buyer’s Guide

Scannerrs
The followwing compa anies only y use line s sensors foor their scaanners: Avvision, Canon, Contexx,
Colortrac, C
Cruse, Epsoon, Fujitsu, Graphtec, HP, Image Access, Kip, Oce, Paanasonic, IB BML, Inotekk,
Kodak, Ricoh, Rowe, Xerox,
Microtek, K X Zeutsschel, none of these ve
endors use digicam tec chnology for
their scannners and th
here are go ood reason ns for this. Professional scannerrs have line ear sensorss
capturing re
ed, green and blue line
es, one afte
er the other, from a doc
cument illum
minated withh white lightt.
The image is reduced by a lens anda projectted on the linear CCD sensor. Thhe object (document) iss
moving in ssynchroniza
ation with th
he exposure e of the CC
CD elements s. In a bookk scanner, the
t camera a,
lens system
m may be moving
m or a rotating mirrror scans over
o the obje
ect simulatiing a movem
ment.

The red eleement will capture


c onee
line of an image follo owed by a
green ele ement and d a blue e
element. AAfter the com
mputer has s
shifted these lines into the e
correct ord der, the image will
consist of RRGB valuess at the full
resolution without anya Bayerr
pattern artiffacts.
T
Trilinear CCD
R
Trilinear
T sennsors conve ert light on its surface into electrical signalss.
G Color
C filters for red, grreen and blue on threee consecuttive rows of o
B CCD
C elemen nts provide a very high h color gammut, which is typical for
CCD
C scanne ers. Pixel sizes for high quality CCCD sensors are rather
large; 10µm
m x 10µm iss a typical value and sizze matters. Larger pixe se and other
els help to rreduce nois
image degrrading effeccts.

Scannerr Lenses

A pixel on the origina al at a resoolution of 6


600dpi has a dimensio on of 64µmm x 64µm, therefore a
ens 1:6.4 must
reduction le m be use
ed in case tthe CCD elements are e 10µm x 110µm. This results in a
long track llength with a large foc
cal depth. AAlmost all bo
ook scanneers today usse a camera
a consisting
g
of a lens an
nd a linear CCD eleme ent aligned in a way that only the distance beetween thes
se elementss
changes to keep the correct
c focuss during the
e sweep ove er the book.

The
T quality of the redduction lens s is a veryy
im
mportant fac ctor influen cing the ov
verall qualityy
of the scann ning system m but constraints are a
lo
ot less com mpared witth high qu uality digita
al
caamera lenses. The reaason for this is the facct
th
hat only the middle secction of the lens is used d
due to the nature of thee line sensor. Not onlyy
would
w cam lens h ave to be almost
a digic a twicee
as big in diameter, it would also show w
significant color abberrations, geometricc
in
naccuracies s like pin cu shion distortions and a
ensity in the
loss of inte e outer corrners. Scannners are also
a used for quality ccontrol applications far
beyond thee point wherre only a pic
cture has to
o be taken th
herefore, prrecision is a key factor.

A “nice locking pic


cture” is no
ot a substittute for a precise scan
n.

Page 4
Book Scann
ner Buyer’s Guide

Scanning Princip
ples
Books do n not have a flat
f surface,, which makkes it neces ssary to scaan along thee curved su urface of the e
book while constantly adjusting th he focal len gth to stay in focus. Th
here are twoo ways to scan
s a bookk,
which is typpically laid out on the scanning bbed in a landscape orie entation. Onne way is to o scan from m
the top to tthe bottom (or vice verrsa) and thee other way y is to scann from left too right (or right
r to left)).
Both metho ods have th heir advanta
ages but theere are two o distinctive differencess; the required number
of pixels in the CCD camera is higher if scan nning top down compa ared to scannning the sh horter edge e.
The factor iis approximmately 1:1.4 because thhis is the fac
ctor betwee en the longeer edge and d the shorter
edge of an n open boo ok in a DIN format. Th he other diffference is that the sccanner has s to travel a
shorter disttance if scanning top down and th e scanning time is sho orter.

If a scanne
er is capable of scanning from thee side and if it also is capable of continuous sly adjusting
g
the focus aand the ressolution wh g over the curved surrface, it cann be built to scan fla
hile moving at
documents, open boo oks and eve en books noot fully ope
ened while resting in a V-shaped cradle. If a
scanner sccans top dowwn, it can do
d the same e with the exception
e off the capabbility to scan
n flat and V-
V
shaped doccuments at the same time.

Some vend dors use digital


d cameras and
claim, that these are also book scanners,
s
which is ob
bviously nott true. A dig
gicam can
only take a picture of a perffectly flat
document and is also o not well suited
s for
high resoluution black and white print. To
overcome this to so ome degre ee, these
vendors use a veryy long foca al length
which make es their sca
anners very tall.

Another waay of hiding


g these pro oblems is
to use chea
ap low resoolution chip cameras
because the lower the resolu ution, the
more focal range.

Useful Lifetime
e

Book scanners can achieve


a more than 5 m millions sca
ans over th
he lifetime oof the scan
nner. Digita
al
uit well befo
cameras qu ore 1 million
n, details ca
an be found here: www w.olegkikin.ccom/shutterrlife.

Be aware tthat the ma arketing deppartments o of some of the digicam


m vendors aare more creative than
n
their engine
eering depa artments. We
W have se een book caameras advvertised at 300.000.00
00 exposuree
cycles, whicch translate
es into a typ
pical life exp
pectancy of 240 years!

Many custo omers have e already re


egretted the ir purchasinng decisions which weere based on
o published
d
specificatio
on or even on data entered
e in official tenders since some of these spec cs are veryy
misleading,, if not comppletely wron
ng.

Hold the vendor ressponsible for


f his speecifications
s. Before yo
ou buy, as k for samp
ple scans
at the highest claim
med resoluution. Do n
not believee any dpi or
o megapixxel numberrs before
they have been verrified by yo
ourself.

Page 5
Book Scann
ner Buyer’s Guide

But what is resolutioon and ho ow much rresolution does a certain digitiization pro oject need?
?
This is onne of the most
m confusing topiics in the book scan nner markket and the
e following
g
chapter inttends to ex
xplain the unbiased
u trruth from a scientific approach..

Screen Resolu
ution
Today´s TF FT screenss have 1600*1200 pixxels at 23” diagonal width w or maaybe 1920*1 1080 at 24”
diagonal width. This tyypically give
es a pixel re
esolution off 96 pixels (actually
( tripplets of red
d, green and
d
blue pixels)) per inch. Let
L us assume 100dpi for a norma al screen too make the ffollowing co omputationss
easier.

If you dispplay a scan


n conducted d at a reso olution of 100dpi in its s original ssize (1:1, ea
ach pixel iss
shown) on a typical TFT screen it will match h the original size perffectly. At 2000dpi the im
mage on the e
wice as wide and twice
screen is tw e than the ooriginal. At 400dpi,
4 it is enlarged bby a factor of
o four. Withh
this knowleedge you ca
an easily doo a quick chheck of the geometric resolution aand compare it to wha at
is advertise
ed. You mig
ght not belie
eve it but so
ome vendorrs really che eat. We havve seen a 150dpi
1 scann
advertised as 400dpi and
a in this specific
s case e even the file properties were fakked.

Find a ddetail in th
he original documentt which is as large as the shoorter edge of your
businesss card and d measure whether thhis detail on
o the screen is as long as th
he longer
edge of your busin ness card for a 200d
dpi scan, 1,5
1 times lo
onger for a 300dpi scan
s and
twice as long for a 400dpi scan.

er Resolution
Scanne
Most confusing is the fact
f that the
e term “reso
olution” in th
he digital world does nnot describe
e the system
m
resolution a
anymore bu ut rather the geometriic resolution n of the op
ptical elemeents, typically the CCD
D
elements. The geome etric resoluution was cchecked in the previo ous chapteer. The pictture on thee
previous paage has thee same geo ometric reso
olution of 3000dpi at thee top and boottom as well
w as in thee
middle. Cle
early, the ca
apability to “resolve
“ dettails” is goo
od in the mid
ddle but badd above annd below the
e
focal plane.

A widely a accepted way


w of determining the e real
system ressolution is using
u us resolutio n test
variou
charts. On ost popular and easy tto use
ne of the mo
charts is the one showwn to the rig e pair
ght. This line
test target can be found
f on many
m otherr test
targets likee the CST TT test targ get from I mage
Access or the UTT test t target (Universal Test
Target) ww ww.universaltesttarget.c
com

The targett consists of


o various patches o of five
black liness separated by four white line es in
different siizes. The number 2.0 for exa ample,
means that there are e two line pairs (two black
ones and twwo white on
nes) per millimeter.

Other test targets are


e used to test variatio
ons of
the illumination, the grey tone balance, color

Page 6
Book Scann
ner Buyer’s Guide

fidelity and
d geometricc distortions s. An objecctive measurement ca an be donee with toolss from third
d
parties like Image Eng gineering, as well as wwith tools fro
om book sca anner vend ors like Ima
age Accesss.
None of th he digital camera vendors who cclaim to prroduce boo ok scannerss is known to supporrt
automatic q quality contrrol via the UTT
U test cha art or any other
o charts.

To determin ne the systtem resolution of a sccanner in dpi, you sho ould scan a test target like the one e
above. A high quality, paper based target li ke the CST TT from Ima age Accesss is good en nough up to o
6.0 line paiirs per mm,, above this
s value a h igh resolution film bas sed target m must be use ed to obtainn
correct results. To avvoid any sa ampling effe
ects which can produc ce moiré a rtifacts, thee test targeet
should be ooriented at a 45° angle
e. Look at th
he scan in itts original size (1:1) annd try to cou
unt the blackk
lines. Reme ember the number 4.0 0 for examp ple, at whic
ch you are still
s sure too see exactlly five liness,
not more or less. The following ta ates this value into the real system
able transla m resolutionn. Try it also
o
on the outeer edges of a documen nt as these ttend to hav
ve less resolution, espeecially if thee scan is noot
a scan but rather only a picture from a digica
am.

LP/mm  dpi 
System d Scanning Tes
S st Target 
2,0  100  H
High quality p
print (Image
e Access CSTTT or UTT) 
3,0  150  H
High quality p
print (Image
e Access CSTTT or UTT) 
4,0  200  H
High quality p
print (Image
e Access CSTTT or UTT) 
5,0  250  H
High quality p
print (Image
e Access CSTTT or UTT) 
6,0  300  H
High quality p
print (Image
e Access CSTTT or UTT) 
7,0  350  H
High quality p
print (Image
e Access CSTTT or UTT) 
8,0  400  H
High quality p
print (Image
e Access CSTTT or UTT) 
10,0  500  Film ba
ased target n
necessary (UTTT) 
12,0  600  Film ba
ased target n
necessary (UTTT) 

Determinne the nummber at which you can n still coun


nt five blac
ck lines, mu
ultiply the value by
50 and y
you get the e system resolution
r in dpi. Dissregard any y higher vaalue in advvertising
material, sales peoples’ prom
mises and sspecs.

Samplin
ng effic
ciency
Sampling e efficiency iss another way
w of apprroaching th he same topic; compaaring real re esolution. A
scanner is rated at 300 0dpi which means thatt we should see 6.0 line e pairs per mm. If we only
o see 4.00
line pairs per mm (digicams show w even less than that) the
t samplin ng efficiencyy is 4.0/6.0 = 66%. The e
higher the sampling efficiency,
e th
he better th
he overall optical syste
em is. A vallue above 80% 8 is high
h
enough to be able to o claim that the geom metric resolution is clo
ose to the real resolu ution. Digitaal
cameras arre often low wer than 600% which b asically inddicates that the real reesolution is somewhere e
between 50 0% and 70% % of the claimed resoluution.

Page 7
Book Scann
ner Buyer’s Guide

Digital Camera
a Resolution
Digital cammeras were e not inven nted to repplace scan nners.
Their purp pose is to take pictu ures of th ree dimens sional
objects toggether with other obje ects. Since
e only one focal
plane existts, many of the objects s on a typiccal picture taken
with a digita
al camera will
w be out of focus anyw yway, allowing for
less overalll sharpnesss than wha at can be captured withw a
scanner. In a typica al picture, the region n of intere est is
somewhere e close to th
he center which
w hides the fact that the
lens losess sharpnesss, geome etric accurracy and color
registration
n at the edgees of the im
mage.

A scanner scans red, green and blue sequeentially, one


e after anotther, and prroduces perfectly good
d
RGB pixelss from a geo
ometric stan
ndpoint.

All digital ccameras ha


ave a Bayer pattern, w which cuts the effectiv
ve resolutioon in half fo
or the green
n
channel an arter for the red and blue channels. The pixels
nd to a qua p havee to be inte erpolated in
n
software, w which produces even more
m artifactts.

The picture
e on the lefft side below is from a digital camera syste em, the righht image is from a rea al
book scann ner. Both arre scanned at 200dpi only because this is th he maximum m resolution the digitaal
camera supports. The e vendor calls
c it a bo
ook scanne er but if yo
ou comparee the two images,
i the
e
difference becomes obvious.
o The left imag e is blurry and full of artifacts. Itt also has a very highh
noise level which is tyypical for lo
ow end digiccams with their
t extremmely small ppixel size. Many
M digita
al
cameras trry to smootth out the noise
n and ssacrifice ev
ven more details,
d whicch is unacc ceptable for
scanning doocuments.

Picture from a book


k2net* digicam Scan
S from a Bookeye 4 scanner

The inabilityy to producce straight black


b & whitte lines also
o makes it very
v hard foor any OCR
R software to
o
recognize tthe blurry te
ext.

* The book2nett picture was takken at the Unive


ersity of Götting en in 2013 and is the best of many
m pictures taaken on different cameras.

A digital camera is
s not a sca
anner. It is
s designed to take piictures of objects at variable
distances while a scanner is designe ed to scann a documment at a very well defined
distance, producing
g crisp and
d sharp ima ages.

Page 8
Book Scann
ner Buyer’s Guide

Document size
e
Normal she eet feed sccanners hav ve a fixed maximum document width and a somewhat unlimited d
t fact thatt a scannerr constantly takes imagges line by line as long
document length. Thiss is due to the g
as the docu ument is moving
m in fro
ont of its lin
ne camera. It is “scannning” the doocument lin
ne by line in
n
contrast to “taking a picture”.
p Fro
om a techniccal standpo oint, there is
s no differe nce betwee
en a systemm
which move es the docu
ument and a system wh s the camera although the second
hich moves d is normallyy
limited in le
ength.

Book scann ners have a maximum m documentt width and d length and
d this is typpically spec
cified in DIN
N
format. Sin
nce they sccan a fixedd area, the reader should carefu ully evaluatte the real size of the e
scanning area. The ma arketing department off one vendo
or, whose sc
canner scanns only 20% % more than n
A3, came uup with the term
t “almosst DIN A2”.

After you hhave determ mined the apppropriate ssystem reso


olution as discussed
d inn the previo
ous chapterr,
you need to o specify th
he maximum m documen nt size to be
e scanned. The larger a source document
d iss,
the more p pixels will be
b required. The followwing table shows
s the number
n of pixels nece essary for a
scanner sccanning alon ng the longer edge of a documen nt and a sccanner scannning along the shorter
edge of a ddocument. The
T first nee eds fewer p
pixels and more
m time, the second needs more e pixels andd
less time.

Some vend dors use digital camerras and cla im, that the
ese are also scannerss, which is not true. Alll
digicams h have a sing gle focal plane and th herefore, caan take a high resoluution picture only of a
perfectly fla
at documen nt and a book is neverr perfectly flat.
f The ina
ability to adjjust the foc
cus during a
scan make es it absoluttely mandattory to have
e the came era and the object preccisely perpendicular to o
each other..

Neverthelesss, we have e listed the megapixel requiremen cams in the following ta


nts for digic able. A pixe
el
by a red, grreen and blue percenta
is defined b age and in the case off the digicaam, a pixel has
h a green n
and a red percentage e with the blue contentt being inte
erpolated orr a green aand a blue with
w the red d
content being interpolaated.

A0
A /E-size A1 / D-size
e A2 / C-siz
ze A3 / B-ssize A4 / letter
l
Scan left to
o right 20
00dpi 3 x 6700 3 x 4700 3 x 3400
0 3 x 24400 3 x 1700
1
Scan top to
o bottom 3 x 9400 3 x 6700 3 x 4700
0 3 x 34400 3 x 2400
2
Digicam 12
24 Mpixel 62 Mpixel 31 Mpixe
el 16 Mpiixel 8 Mp
pixel

o right
Scan left to 30
00dpi 3 x 10000 3 x 7100 3 x 5000
0 3 x 36600 3 x 2500
2
Scan top to
o bottom 3 x 14100 3 x 10000 3 x 7100
0 3 x 50000 3 x 3600
3
Digicam 27
79 Mpixel 140 Mpixell 70 Mpixe
el 35 Mpiixel 18 Mpixel

o right
Scan left to 40
00dpi 3 x 13300 3 x 9400 3 x 6700
0 3 x 47700 3 x 3400
3
Scan top to
o bottom 3 x 18800 3 x 13300 3 x 9400
0 3 x 67700 3 x 4700
4
Digicam 49
96 Mpixel 248 Mpixell 124 Mpix
xel 62 Mpiixel 31 Mpixel

o right
Scan left to 60
00dpi 3 x 19900 3 x 14100 3 x 10000 3 x 71 00 3 x 5000
5
Scan top to
o bottom 3 x 28100 3 x 19900 3 x 14100 3 x 100000 3 x 7100
7
Digicam 1116 Mpixel 558 Mpixell 279 Mpix
xel 140 Mp
pixel 70 Mpixel

Note: If a vvendor show


ws half the pixel count than what is shown in
n the abovee list, they count all red
d,
green and blue pixels together annd interpola sing two colors per pixxel. In otherr words 1/3rd
ate the miss r

Page 9
Book Scann
ner Buyer’s Guide

of the pixels are real and 2/3rd are


a interpollated. The above table e assumess 2/3rd of a pixels color
rd
n to be real and
information a only 1/33 interpola
ated which is
i still less quality
q than a scan can
n produce.

Some vend dors claim they


t can ca
apture DIN A2 images s at 400dpi with their 330 megapix xel digicamss
but the above table proves them wrong b because thiis will require at leastt 124 meg gapixels. AtA
600dpi, the
e largest dig
gicam senso
ors available
e today, costing thousands of U.S S. dollars orr Euros, can
n
only producce a mere A4 ge which is far too sma
A size imag all for seriou
us book scaanning.

All book scanners have high resolution line cameras, otherw wise they wwould not be
b called
scannerss. If a vend
dor using a digicam cclaims to get
g close to o typical sccanner res
solutions
of 300dp
pi and abov ve, check th
he above ta
able and fin
nd out the truth.

Speed a
and Exp
posure
The scanniing processs takes seve eral thousaand images per second d and is theerefore very
y insensitive
e
e movement of the doccument, vibrations etc. Scanner ccameras only illuminate
to imperfecctions in the e
the small a ey actually scan with a high qualiity, intense light which in return delivers
area that the d high
h
quality, low
w noise imagges. Typica al exposure times are in
n the range O the other
e of 250µ too 1.500µs. On
hand, high resolution “still”
“ digica
ams have exxposure timmes in the magnitude
m oof a couple of secondss,
making the em very sen nsitive to all sorts of m
movements of the camera, the boook, the use er and even n
the floor of the room in
n which the digicam is installed.

The amoun nt of light is also a qua ality determ ining factorr. Some venndors claim that their scanners
s doo
ght at all and therefore, do not em
not need lig mit any infrarred and UV light. Whilee the second statemen nt
is obviouslyy true, the first
f one is misleading.
m These scan nners comp bient light for
pletely rely oon the amb
the scannin ng process, equivalen nt to shooti ng a photo o with a diggicam withoout a flash. Everybodyy
knows thatt the resultt of such a photo is very unpre edictable in
n terms of color bala ance, noise e,
reflections a
and so on.

Good bookk scanners have their own o well coontrolled, hiigh quality light sourcee. The light level needss
to be high in the area a of interestt and shoul d not illumiinate anything outside of this are ea. The high h
level of scaanner illumiination prov vided is neccessary to boost the “good light” from the scanner
s to a
level much h higher tha an the amb bient light, sso that it overrides
o all imperfectiions introduuced by the e
ambient light. The sca anners’ lightt source sho ould typically be 10 – 202 times briighter than the ambien nt
light, loweriing the senssitivity to the uncontrol led ambient light level to an invisi ble level.

At the samme time, all areas not being


b scann ned at a giv ven time sh
hould only bbe subjecte ed to limitedd
light exposure in orde er to protec
ct the bookss and the scanner
s opeerator. Boooks scannerrs that obeyy
these ruless have a mo oving light bar
b of high intensity LE ED light whhich sweepss across the e surface of
o
the book ass it is scann
ned. The ligght intensityy is controlled during th
he scan to perfectly illuminate the e
book even at varying distances
d a angles. The book scanners frrom major m
and market play
yers all workk
with a moviing light barr.

A moderrn book sc canner use es a movin ng light ba


ar generateed by high h quality LEDs.
L A
device w
which illumiinates the whole
w scan
nning area
a at once orr not at all is most lik
kely not a
scanner but an oveerpriced diggital camerra.

Page 10
Book Scann
ner Buyer’s Guide

Bits, De
ensity and
a Nois
se
Probably thhe greatest misconception about sscanner tec chnology is the one abbout bit deptth per colorr,
also called color resolu
ution. The first thing to remember is that bit depth
d and dyynamic range are NOT T
the same thhing. They are
a going to o sound mu uch the sam me, but they are not andd this differrence will bee
explained hhere. Most scanners
s noow have at least 30 bitt color depth and manyy have a co olor depth ofo
36, 42 or 448 bits. Morre bits are required to o hold nume eric values containing better dyna amic range e.
While the ttwo factors are often associated,
a , there is also a secon nd requirem
ment. High quality, low w
noise CCD D and electrronics (i.e., expensive)) are neede er dynamic range. The
ed for bette e fact that a
scanner claaims to havve 48 bits of
o color dep pth has nothhing to do with
w its real optical den nsity. It onlyy
means thatt 16 bit A/D converters are used.

The following table sh hows the thheoretical m


maximum de ensity for various
v bit ddepths. If th
hese valuess
are found in
n a scannerr specification sheet, itt is safe to disregard
d th
hem compleetely becaus se they onlyy
specify the size of the container, not
n the conttent.

Tota
al Bits B
Binary steps Max D ensity (no noise) Max
M Densitty (1bit noiise)
30 1024 3.0 2.7
36 4096 3.6 3.3
42 16384 4.2 3.9
48 65536 4.8 4.5

Matterial M
Max Densitty
Real world ddensity rangges are
New
wspaper prin
nt < 1.8 a lot lower thhan expecte
ed. The
Refllective phottographic pa
aper 2.0 able to the left lists density
ta
Besst print on pa
aper 2.6 anges for vaarious materials
ra

Besst film transp


parencies 3.2

The messa age is clear:: 36 bits of resolution


r ccan hold all numerical values
v neceessary to re epresent the
e
density rannge found with
w the bes st film trans parencies. A bigger co ontainer, 422 or 48 bits is a waste
e,
especially bbecause ha andling morre data slow ws down every
e systemm. Some syystems may use more e
than 36bit rresolution to
o allow brightness and gamma co orrection in software
s in a later proc
cessing step
p
but this doe
es not mean n that the deensity will a
also increas
se.

Far more important th han the colo or depth is the noise level of the e system. M Modern boo ok scannerss
have line ccameras with large pix xels up to 10*10µm which w can collect
c manny photons before theyy
saturate. M
More photon ns mean le ess noise. If the pixel size is cu ut in half, itt doubles the noise, a
problem all high resolu ution digica
ams have to o cope with. Today, thee pixels of a digicam are
a only one e
tenth the siize of a line
e camera an nd a lot of ccomputing is needed to get a halffway decen nt image ou
ut
of them. Th
he old sayin ng “bigger is
s better” fullyy applies to
o CCD elem
ments.

36 bit co
olor resoluution is mo
ore than e nough for a book sccanner. Annything ab bove that
might look attractive in a bro
ochure butt is useles
ss. More im
mportant aare the illumination
level and
d the pixel size.
s

Date edited: 18.11.2013 © 22013 by Imag


ge Access

Page 11

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