Hi everyone, I am wondering if anyone has been using a wide format scanner for scanning maps, building plans, and the like. What do you have, and how have you found them? There are so many on the market, I am interested in your responses.What should I look for and avoid?
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Thank you for your help - much appreciated
Hi Rose-lee, Whittlesea Council use an OCE TC4 scanner. Not particularly for archive use. It is used by the whole organisation and is primarily used for house plans, development application plans. We have scanned some old plans using the scanner. It has a variety of dpi, file formats, and colour. I don't think it would cope with very thick board but I haven't tried that out.
Thank you for being so informative, I had not considered some of those important requirements. What model do you have?
Hi Rose-lee, We are using a Contex wide format scanner in our Archives section for digitising legacy and historic maps, plans and drawings. When we went to quote we specified that it needed to be able to scan to PDF/A; that it could scan in colour or greyscale; that it could scan up to 1200dpi (we use 600dpi as standard but need the extra if we want to digitise photos); that it had a soft grab (to protect those older documents - some of the large scanners can be quite ferocious in the grab when you put the plan in); that it included software to be able to edit the scans for contrast, brightness, colour etc. as well as rotation; and that it was able to scan thicker than the standard 2mm. The one that we went with can scan up to 15mm thickness which is handy when putting through documents that are still mounted on board and can't be removed without damage. Regards, Heather Jones (Team Leader Inactive Records and Archives, Toowoomba Regional Council, QLD)