Scanning formats?

[dmingo]

I have drawers full of drawings that I have to scan.

My first task is to save them for access amongst our staff as reference information
My second use is for attachments to AutoCAD Map drawings.
The third consideration is for conversion to vector format.

I am wondering if there is a preferred file format that I should use.

Any input would be appreciated.

[Jmurphy]

Jpg or TIF, would be my choice.

[rkmcswain]

Also, what formats *can* you scan to? Our OCE TDS800 allows you to scan to TIF, CALS, and PDF. Any of those meet your first two requirements, and the first two are probably a bit better for raster to vector.

[Railrose]

We scan everything into a bitonal tif image at a resolution of 400 dpi.

Everyone we deal with can handle the tif's & bitonal is easier to vectorize, & edit. That resolution is a good general purpose res. Anything higher can inflate your image sizes, making them harder to save to disks or e-mail.

Also, we use stripped format. It allows thumbnail views in windows. Some of the others don't allow that, or viewing in other software.

[dmingo]

Thanks for the responses All.

1st Murph:
I have scanned into both of those formats and I like the Jpg file size, but our IT person tells me that jpg files will degrade. I don't understand how a digital file can degrade (other than possibly hardware issues). Ever heard of such a thing?

tif files come out well, but are so large. I have also tried png format - about 2/3 the size of tif. Does a resolution of about 150 dpi sound about right to you, or would you go higher?

2nd R.K. McSwain:
We have a Vidar Nova XP36 with PDF. It covers most of the formats (tif, jpg, bmp, pdf, png, gif, eps - won't do cals though). tifs would be good for undelaying in drawings (except for size) and pdf's will be great for use by staff who don't have CAD.

3rd Railrose:
I scanned one drawing bitonal, but it was so choppy, I had passed on that - however, I scanned it at lower resolution (150 dpi). I'll try it again at higher.
I have been reading up on Raster Design software as well and requested the trial software to try it, but from what I am reading, it may be quicker just to re-draw plan-profile drawings than to clean them up. Is that a fair assessment? I am looking at about a thousand drawings with probably 90% of them being plan-profiles.

Again, thanks to all of you for your input.
From an army of one in this office, having the support of the heavy artillery of AUGI makes the battle much easier!

Thanks again,
Darrell

[Railrose]

Thanks for the responses All.

1st Murph:
I have scanned into both of those formats and I like the Jpg file size, but our IT person tells me that jpg files will degrade. I don't understand how a digital file can degrade (other than possibly hardware issues). Ever heard of such a thing?

tif files come out well, but are so large. I have also tried png format - about 2/3 the size of tif. Does a resolution of about 150 dpi sound about right to you, or would you go higher?

2nd R.K. McSwain:
We have a Vidar Nova XP36 with PDF. It covers most of the formats (tif, jpg, bmp, pdf, png, gif, eps - won't do cals though). tifs would be good for undelaying in drawings (except for size) and pdf's will be great for use by staff who don't have CAD.

3rd Railrose:
I scanned one drawing bitonal, but it was so choppy, I had passed on that - however, I scanned it at lower resolution (150 dpi). I'll try it again at higher.
I have been reading up on Raster Design software as well and requested the trial software to try it, but from what I am reading, it may be quicker just to re-draw plan-profile drawings than to clean them up. Is that a fair assessment? I am looking at about a thousand drawings with probably 90% of them being plan-profiles.

Again, thanks to all of you for your input.
From an army of one in this office, having the support of the heavy artillery of AUGI makes the battle much easier!

Thanks again,
Darrell

That will depend on the drawings. If you want to redraw, instead of convert, Raster Design has Raster snap that will help follow the lines, if they are in bitonal. Either way, it takes a little getting used to, but can go fairly fast.

[Jmurphy]

Thanks for the responses All.

1st Murph:
I have scanned into both of those formats and I like the Jpg file size, but our IT person tells me that jpg files will degrade. I don't understand how a digital file can degrade (other than possibly hardware issues). Ever heard of such a thing?

tif files come out well, but are so large. I have also tried png format - about 2/3 the size of tif. Does a resolution of about 150 dpi sound about right to you, or would you go higher?

Darrell

Yes the jgp will be a smaller file size, the resolution that you scan it at plays a part of it also. The degradation that your IT might be speaking about is when you copy the image from one program to another etc. The png format is used more for web viewing and is not that great if you need to use it in CAD.
If you are needing all your dwgs into a CAD (vector) format then you may want to look at the professional services that do that. If you only need to use part of the drawing(s) for a new project then scan them in and leave them as raster to build from. I have a few users that insert the inage into new dwgs then image clip what they don't need and leave it as raster format to show a detail in the dwg. As time permits to back and convert to vector.

[rkmcswain]

We have a Vidar Nova XP36 with PDF. It covers most of the formats (tif, jpg, bmp, pdf, png, gif, eps - won't do cals though). tifs would be good for undelaying in drawings (except for size) and pdf's will be great for use by staff who don't have CAD.

Storage is cheap. Don't let file size become too much of an issue. We have hundreds of gigabytes of scanned TIF's - no problems. Most are ±2mb. They work great in Raster Design also.

[dmingo]

Thank you all again. I appreciate all of the help.

Regards,
Darrell

[jmeyer.186809]

I always scan to tif which can easily be converted to other formats as well with oem software.