Need
for High Quality Flatbed Scanners in Archaeology
Since
the home office of Scitex
is rather far away, in Israel, I looked around for another company
that I could reach by train within Europe, and I found ScanView,
conveniently located in the same city as PhaseOne
(digital cameras). I am looking forward to going to Israel when
Andrea and I have enough time, at which time we will report on Scitex.
In the meantime, we found exactly what archaeologists and museums
need in the ScanView.
When
we reviewed all available products, we noticed that ScanView products
consistently got good marks. The name of ScanView stands for quality
and craftsmanship, as would be expected for a product produced in
Denmark.
So,
Andrea David and I went to Copenhagen to visit the factory of ScanView.
Although ScanView makes drum scanners of legendary quality, for
any archaeologist, historian, biologist (zoologist or botanist)
and for 90% of the museum market, a high end flatbed scanner is
the better choice. The A3 size (11x17 inches for the American equivalent)
is of further interest because most of this market has large drawings
to be scanned, especially architectural historians, art historians,
and again, archaeologists. Anthropologists would be another market,
since they should have sketches and other records which need to
be digitized on a flatbed scanner. Geographers have their millions
of maps.
Makers
of high end scanners orient themselves to the prepress and desktop
publishing people and forget the eager market of scientists and
scholars who are just now realizing they have to come to grips with
the digital era. Since most prepress companies have long ago selected
what kind of equipment they will obtain, the countless professors
and their departments are the areas that need the most assistance
in deciding what format is best for them.
Peter
Dalhoff Christiansen, Support Engineer, explained the various ScanView
products. The F8 family is certainly an impressive piece of precision
engineering. The high dpi is needed because the alternative, a UMAX
Mirage, is only 800 dpi, and costs $6999. The ScanView F8 is obviously
higher price than that, but worth every dot-per-inch. One of the
initial mistakes of all of us is to buy a scanner on the basis of
price. After a few months we learn that the extrapolated dpi claims
of the ads are just smoke and mirrors. These dpi are essentially
useless. This fact is why you really want a machine the quality
of a ScanView, since all 4,000 of their dpi are true dpi.
You
can probably order a ScanMate F8 or F8 Plus flat bed scanner from
any high end dealer. I have seen them offered in catalogs of DTP
Direct. Ask for Scott Olson. The F8 was product number 64-00325-122.
ScanView
in the USA: 330A Hatch Drive, Foster City, CA 94404 (415) 378 6360,
fax (415) 378 6368.
Home
office of ScanView: ScanView A/S, Meterbuen 6, DK-2740 , Denmark.
Phone (45) 44 53 6100, fax (45) 44 53 61 08.
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