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The Document Imaging
SDK/ActiveX is built upon Black Ice technology used by customers for
many years in products like TIFF SDK/ActiveX, Annotation SDK/ActiveX
and Image SDK/ActiveX, but also includes many new features that have
been developed exclusively for the Document Imaging SDK/ActiveX
product.
Document Imaging
SDK/ActiveX is a software development tool that helps application
developers and programmers to create applications with sophisticated
image processing capabilities. The SDK works on every Windows
operating system from Windows Server 2003 to Windows 95 and because
it includes both C/C++ libraries and ActiveX controls, the
functionality of the product can be accessed from most programming
languages like C, C++, Visual Basic, Delphi, MS FoxPro, and MS
Access. Document Imaging SDK/ActiveX is also .NET compatible meaning
that VB.NET, C#, and J# programmers can also take full advantage of
the product.
Structurally,
Document Imaging SDK/ActiveX consists of a set of DLLs and ActiveX
controls. Each DLL and ActiveX control implements a specific,
well-defined feature set, which is designed to help developers to
pinpoint specific functionality.
Based on the above
structure, Document Imaging SDK/ActiveX can be divided into the
following main components:
Display
Document Imaging
SDK/ActiveX includes a very powerful feature that makes displaying
images to any display device easy. The display feature included in
Document Imaging SDK/ActiveX provides an easy to use solution for
developers. Application developers now do not have to spend
expensive engineering time implementing complicated display
routines. Just a few function calls and the Black Ice display
routine will do the rest.
Compression
Document Imaging SDK/ActiveX control supports all
of the popular data compression methods used in Document Imaging.
TWAIN scanner support
Scanning support is
based on the latest TWAIN 1.9 drivers. With the latest TWAIN
drivers, application developers have total control over almost every
aspect of the scanning process. Applications can even turn on and
off the use of the document feeder that some newer scanners have in
order to perform batch scanning or automated scanning.
File formats (loading, saving and converting images from one
format to another)
Document Imaging
SDK/ActiveX support several file formats. From simple BMP files to
more complex TIFF, JPEG and PDF file, everything is included. The
Document Imaging SDK can help create standard Group 3 1d, Group 3 2d
or Group 4 faxable TIFF files, create JPEG files for web sites,
color faxing or photo albums, or use other formats like PDF, PCX,
DCX, PNG. The TIFF and JPEG libraries developed by Black Ice
Software are one of the first and most extensive
TIFF and JPEG file format processing and
encoding/decoding library available
on the market. And that’s not all!
Document Imaging SDK/ActiveX control comes with the PDF plug in to
write PDF files without extra licensing charge.
Printing
Black Ice imaging and
image processing tools provide an easy way to print images in single
or multiple print jobs with a wide variety of options. When
printing, today’s applications not only want to create a paper copy
of an image file but also want to specify the way in which the image
will be printed. The image has to be positioned on the paper
according to a predefined location, printed with its original size
or stretched to a specific size. Some applications even require
printing more than one image on the same page so the amount of paper
wasted would be minimal. Black Ice imaging tools provide
several powerful options to meet these needs.
Document Image Processing
Image processing
functions are used to make images look better or correct and remove
visual artifacts from images. These image processing functions are
can be used together with filters and effects to produce better over
all result. The Document Imaging SDK implements several
image-processing methods that can provide solutions to problems that
happen during image acquisition such as faxing, scanning and
photography. Some of the most widely used features are automatic
de-skew, automatic black border removal, punch hole removal, and
despeckle or clean image, all of which are available in the Document
Imaging SDK.
Fax Image Processing
One very important
area where image processing is commonly used is faxing. During
faxing image files are being transferred from one device to another.
The format, the size and the resolution of the image file that can
be transferred is specified by the fax standard and by the device
(i.e. fax board) that will transmit the file.
Internet
Black Ice Software’s Document Imaging ActiveX controls are designed
to assist developers in building web-based Internet imaging
applications. You can build a server based or client based
image-processing web application with quick integration using the
Document Imaging ActiveX controls.
Color Space Conversion
The Color Space Conversion functions implement features that
change the way that colors are represented in images. Today’s
devices represent colors in many different ways. Some devices, such
as printers accept 1 bit monochrome images, others accept 24 bit
full color images. But there is also a difference in the methods
used to encode colors. Some devices, like display devices, work with
the RGB color space. Others devices, such as printers, may use the
CMYK colors space. The Document Imaging SDK/ActiveX has over 60
color space conversion functions, which can be grouped into three
sets of functions. There is a group of function to convert a Device
Independent Bitmap, a group to convert buffers and a group to
convert a single pixel to any of the color spaces. Black Ice imaging
tools currently support the following 9 color spaces: RGB, CMY, CMYK,
HIS, HSV, L*a*b, XYZ, YIQ, YUV.
Color Depth Conversion
The Color Depth
Conversion functions implement features that change the way that
colors are represented in images. Today’s devices represent colors
in many different ways. Some devices, such as printers, accept 1 bit
monochrome images, others accept 24 bit full color images.
Converting a color image to black and white is called halftoning
or clustered-dot ordered dither in computer graphics. The
Document Imaging SDK/ActiveX has 9 sophisticated dithering
algorithm, some of them only available from Black Ice such as
Stevenson Arce dithering.
Transformations
Image transformations
are important and one of the most widely used components of any
imaging toolkit. Image transforms produce results quickly
without degrading the quality of the image.
Common
Dialogs
Black Ice imaging
tools include 55 common dialog boxes for developers. The common
dialog boxes are optional and were designed to drastically reduce
user interface development time. There are 37 common dialogs for
filters and in addition, there are common dialogs for image
processing features such as Red Eye Removal,
Selective Color, Brightness, Contrast, and Gamma Correction.
Database
The
Document Imaging SDK/ActiveX allows developers to process images in
memory and also provides functionality which allows developers to
quickly and easily index their application within a specified ODBC
database. You can use the database features to store images in
any of the file formats supported by the Document Imaging
SDK/ActiveX and the database support includes a variety of callback
routines and features multipage support.
Effects and
Filters
Effects and filters are designed to change the
appearance of an image by applying sophisticated mathematical
algorithms to the image. The Document Imaging SDK includes almost 50
different filters and effects that provide developers access to
image processing tools that could take years to develop.
Text Processing
Black Ice imaging
tools include a wide variety of text processing functions that can
be very helpful in many different application areas.
Annotation
A complete set of easy to use tools that enable
software engineers to add annotation, drawing, text, graphics,
images, signature, stamps and sticky notes to a document in a
shorter timeframe.
PDF Read/Write
Enables the
conversion from different image formats to the popular PDF (Adobe
Portable Document Format) file format. Any color or monochrome
image type supported by the Black Ice imaging toolkits can be
converted into PDF format.
Sample
Applications:
Additionally, the Document Imaging SDK
contains a variety of new sample applications, which demonstrate the
new document conversion capabilities and features. The product is
fully .NET compatible and also provides sample source code written
in C#, VB.NET, and J# to demonstrate the powerful document
conversion options
Visual Studio 2005, and VB.NET 8.0
Support has also been added.
Operating Systems
Supported:
32-bit Windows Server 2003 family, XP, 2000, NT 4.0 and
ME/98/95
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