Document Imaging SDK / ActiveX Toolkit

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 Document Imaging SDK is compatible with the following development languages: .NET, VB.NET, C#, J#., C, C++, Visual Basic, Delphi, MS FoxPro, and MS Access.

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:
Windows 7/Vista/XP/2000 (32 and 64 bit)
Windows Server 2008 R2/2008/2003/2000 (32 and 64 bit)
Ctrix XenApp (Citrix Presentation Server)/XenDesktop