Category Archives: Glossary

Book types

A book (Latin liber), according to traditional understanding, is a collection of printed, written, painted or even blank sheets of paper or other suitable materials, which is bound and usually equipped with a cover or jacket.

There are different types of books. They can be divided according to the type of production (brochure, hardcover) or according to the content (encyclopedia, travel guide, novel, etc.). There are also numerous special cases (e.g. audio book, blank book, artist’s book). Even books from everyday life do not make the classification easier (cash book, guest book). In addition, there are a number of products that are printed and bound, but are not called books (calendars, magazines, etc.).

In the digital age, the term book has also been applied to electronic publications (e-book).

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Book cradle

The book cradle is a device that facilitates [...]

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Folio format (book formats)

The term folio derives from the Latin word [...]

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Newspaper format (paper formats)

A newspaper format describes the standardized dimensions of [...]

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Miniature book (book formats)

A miniature book (mini book, micro book) is [...]

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Book scanner

In contrast to document or passage scanners, book [...]

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Image circle

The image circle is the mental circle that touches on all four corners of a sensor. It is important to know that an image that hits the sensor through the optics, i.e. the lens, has a round shape. The sensor, however, is rectangular. Thus, the image circle should always be larger than the area of the sensor in order not to “give up” any sensor area and to avoid dark spots at the edges of the image.
Depending on the size and geometric format of the sensor and optics, the image circle can be very different. However, especially when selecting suitable lenses, this size serves as a guide. For optimal image quality, the image circle and sensor area should match well.

The sensor of the X71 camera used in our systems has an image circle of 43 mm.

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Image sensor / CMOS versus CCD

There are two types of image sensors for industrial cameras on [...]

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Bayer Matrix (Bayer Sensor)

The Bayer matrix is the spatial arrangement of the red, green [...]

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Margin area

When digitizing with reflected light scanners, the margin area of the [...]

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Lens

Every camera needs a lens to project the object or the [...]

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Operating systems – Windows

All our book2net digitizing systems and our Easy Scan software operate under Windows-based operating systems from Windows 7 onwards. This ensures high and long-term availability, investment security and system support for our customers. However, for a delay-free and productive workflow in the area of high-performance and mass digitization, we recommend Windows 10 – 64 Bit.
We routinely equip our self-service scanners for the public sector, such as the book2net Spirit and the book2net Public, with a Windows Embedded operating system ex works. This modularized version is configured specifically for our applications. It thus combines all the performance and convenience of the Windows operating system with increased security and reliability.
The Windows Embedded installation uses unique features that are only available for the Windows Embedded product family. Among the key features is the Unified Write Filter (UWF), which provides virus and write protection during the scanning process. It prevents any access to the system‘s hard drive, as all write requests are routed directly to temporary memory. All user applications and accesses are performed exclusively in the so-called overlay.
This technology protects the system from corruption by viruses as well as from unexpected power failures, as the original contents of the hard disk remain untouched and the system can be restored to the original default at any time by rebooting.
The operation of our systems for the public sector thus takes place in a protected area, comparable to the technology of ATMs or ticket machines.
This type of operating system is only available with a PC integrated in the scanner. As a rule, the system is controlled via a touch screen that is also integrated in the scanner housing. However, it is also possible to use an external screen, mouse and keyboard.

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EasyScan scanning software

Our Easy Scan software is the user-friendly interface [...]

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Apochromat / apochromatic

When light passes through an optical system (lenses made of glass), so-called “color errors” can occur. In this phenomenon, for example, white light is refracted into its components, which also explains the play of colors on glass edges when exposed to sunlight. A similar phenomenon is known from water surfaces, and rainbows are also basically based on this principle.

An apochromat (Greek for free of color, colorless) is an optical system, e.g. a lens, in which these color errors are largely corrected.

apochromatic image of a building

Comparison of an image with and without chromatic correction
Source: Wikimedia Commons (unchanged)
Copyright: Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported.

Since such color errors should be avoided when digitizing, our systems work with a chromatic-corrected lens that compensates for this phenomenon. Otherwise, colored fragments would show around the edges of black letters, for example, and the scan would not be identical with the original.

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Chromatic abberation

In optics, chromatic aberration (also abbreviated to CA) is a failure [...]

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Lens

Every camera needs a lens to project the object or the [...]

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Cultural property protection

In 2016, Germany modernized its cultural property protection law with a comprehensive reform, thereby adapting German law to EU and international standards, above all to the UNESCO Convention of 1970. The Act on the Protection of Cultural Property came into force on August 6, 2016. It protects cultural property that bears witness of the German cultural history, but also such cultural property which is classified as national cultural property by other countries. Key points include the prevention of illegal trade, the improvement of mechanism for restitution, the modernization of the regulations on nationally valuable cultural assets and the protection of museum collections. (http://www.kulturgutschutz-deutschland.de/EN/Home/home_node.html)

In this context, digitization is a fundamental contribution to the preservation of cultural heritage and is therefore promoted through state initiatives.

In addition to the documentation for information assurance and scientific research, disaster recovery is a particular challenge in digitizing cultural assets. It calls for special damage-specific or cause-specific measures, as in the case of the destruction of the valuable holdings of the Anna Amalia Library in Weimar in devastating fire in 2004. The serious damages caused by fire and fire extinguishing water not only require highly complex restoration measures, but also pose complex challenges for the digitization process:

Such damaged and fragile books and documents require tailor-made scan systems that meet the highest conservation requirements in terms of handling and lighting, but also offer the appropriate technology to restore text and image information that can no longer be seen with the naked eye. In such cases innovative systems such as the book2net multispectral system can make a decisive contribution to securing and restoring information in a gentle and contact-free manner.

German Federal Document Safeguarding Project

According to The Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property, the German Federal and State Archives have been scanning and microfilming their most valuable collections since 1961. The microfilming is carried out on behalf of the Federation under the leadership of the Federal Office of Civil Protection and Disaster Assistance (BBK). The archive material is security-filmed on microfilm in accordance with selection criteria defined by the Federal Government and in compliance with specified technical standards.
Here, too, book2net makes an active contribution to securing cultural assets with its scanning systems. As part of the conversion of the microfilming devices to digital technology, which was agreed between the Federal Office for Civil Protection and Disaster Assistance (BBK) and the Conference of Heads of the Federal and State Archives Administrations (KLA), four of the German state archives involved have already decided to purchase a total of 12 book2net high-performance archive scanners. The state archives of Hesse, Baden-Württemberg, North Rhine Westphalia and the Secret State Archives Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation are the first institutions to have opted for our newly developed high-performance scanner book2net Archive Pro.
 

Accordance to international digitization guidelines

The digitization of valuable cultural objects should be carried out both as gently and extensive as possible in order to ensure permanent access even for future generations. This raises the question of the best possible concepts and methods that guarantee a constant quality of the scan results with the least physical stress on the objects. The development of and compliance with guidelines should therefore be a mandatory prerequisite for every digitization project of cultural property. However, navigating through the multitude of scan systems and analysis tools available on the market can be an enormous challenge for the user.
The two currently most popular digitization guidelines, which also define the relevant standards for us, come from the United States (FADGI – Federal Agencies Digitization Guidelines Initiative) and the Netherlands (Metamorfoze Preservation Imaging Guidelines). To standardize these two different approaches, the ISO (International Organization for Standardization) has been developing a new standard since 2012, which can be found in the three documents ISO 19262, ISO 19263 and ISO 19264.

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Multispectral Imaging System at The National Archives

The National Archives use book2net's revolutionary filterless multispectral camera to index [...]

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German Federal Document Safeguarding Project

The destruction of culturally and historically significant documents through armed conflicts [...]

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Digitization guidelines

The quality of a digitization process is subject to a wide [...]

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Metamorfoze

Metamorfoze is the Netherlands’ national program for the preservation of paper [...]

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ISO/TS 19264-1:2017

In 2012, the ISO (International Organization for Standardization) began to define [...]

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FADGI

The Federal Agencies Digital Guidelines Initiative (FADGI) was founded in 2007 [...]

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Archive Pro at the Hessian State Archives

Federal security document safeguarding project relies on the versatility of the [...]

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ISO/TS 19264-1:2017

In 2012, the ISO (International Organization for Standardization) began to define uniform standards in the field of digitization and long-term archiving in order to specify both the necessary processes and the required image quality and make them comparable.

This led to the publication of three basic documents:

ISO 19262 essentially defines the terms used in the field of image capturing in order to achieve a standardization of the language,

ISO 19263 describes the workflow problems and provides detailed information on how analytical measurements should be performed,

Finally, ISO 19264 describes these measurements in detail and provides targets and tolerance values for the various aspects. It specifies exactly which properties are to be measured, how they are to be measured and how the results of the analysis are to be presented.

In the revised version, ISO / TS 19264-1: 2017 has meanwhile become the international standard for the quality analysis of digital imaging systems (cameras and scanners) in the field of cultural heritage. In addition to METAMORFOZE, it is the main quality assessment standard in Europe in particular.

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Digitization guidelines

The quality of a digitization process is subject to a wide [...]

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Metamorfoze

Metamorfoze is the Netherlands’ national program for the preservation of paper [...]

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Test charts

Test charts are needed to create device characterization for a camera, [...]

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Watermark

A watermark is an identifying image or pattern in paper that appears as various shades of lightness/darkness when viewed by transmitted light (or when viewed by reflected light, atop a dark background), caused by thickness or density variations in the paper.

Watermarks have been traceable for handmade paper since the 13th century, originally serving as trademarks of the manufacturing paper mills. Since the screens for paper production only had a limited service life and paper was usually not stored for long due to its high price, it is possible to date historical papers very precisely by determining datable watermarks and comparing them with the deviations caused by the manufacturing process. For this reason, filigranology (watermarking) has established itself as a forensic auxiliary science for historical sciences, especially in art history, to determine the age, origin and authenticity of documents and graphic works of art using watermarks. For this purpose, extensive historical collections have been created since the beginning of the 20th century, many of which are now available as databases. Watermarks on papers that have been damaged, poorly preserved or extensively painted over can also be made visible again with the help of modern analysis methods such as multispectral photography.

Discover our filterless multispectral camera system!

Nowadays, watermarks are mainly used as security features on bank notes, postage stamps, and other government documents to discourage counterfeiting.

In the course of digitization, however, imperceptible markings and information in media files that can only be detected with certain methods are referred to as “digital watermarks”. As with traditional watermarks, the document and watermark information should be inextricably linked. There is a separate process for each type of media (images, audio, video), which is adapted to the respective coding and data format. At book2net, too, we offer special software modules to protect digital copies with individual digital watermarks.

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Multispectral imaging

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Forensics

Forensics, from the Latin forensic (belonging to the [...]

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Underdrawing

In art history, especially painting research, underdrawing describes [...]

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Forensics

Forensics, from the Latin forensic (belonging to the forum / market), is a collective term for scientific and technical fields in which criminal activities are systematically investigated. The history of the term originates from Roman times, during which a criminal charge meant presenting the case before a group of public individuals in the forum and defending it with facts and arguments. This origin is the source of the two modern usages of the word forensic – as a form of legal evidence and as a category of public presentation. In modern forensic science, scanning systems are used in particular to uncover forgeries of documents, certificates and works of art. This can be done primarily by using multispectral photography. It allows the non-invasive material analysis of handwriting, print and machine fonts, paper structures, color pigments, painting and drawing materials such as inks or chalks as well as the visualization of watermarks and signatures.

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Underdrawing

In art history, especially painting research, underdrawing describes [...]

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XML

Extensible markup language (XML) is a metadata language used to structure data for easier transport and storage. XML files contain both tags and texts. Tags provide data structure and they surround the text in the files that the user wishes to store. XML metadata files are generated for every scan job delivery and uploaded to the document management system.

TWAIN

TWAIN, an acronym for Technology Without An Interesting Name is a standard for the application program interface (API) between input devices like book scanners and applications which control the image input device such as capture software. Using a TWAIN-compliant application like open office and TWAIN-compliant scanner with TWAIN-compliant drivers allows users to operate scanners in a similar way.

Book2net scanners are fitted with optional TWAIN drivers giving users the possibility to log in with TWAIN-compatible applications like Adobe, initiate scanning via Adobe scan command, then book2net capture software will start scanning with specified settings. TWAIN functions with TIFF (Tagged Image File Formats) file and is appropriate for doing optical character recognition (OCR) to create text output.

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OCR

OCR (Optical Character Recognition) is a character recognition [...]

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TIFF

TIFF (TAGGED IMAGE FILE FORMAT) is a computer [...]

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