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Find below the FAQ of the IRISPen
for detailed information
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General
IRISPen FAQ |
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Which is it, the IRISPen,
the IRISPen-II or the IRISPen Executive? |
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For starters, what are talking about
exactly? Is it the IRISPen, the IRISPen-II or the IRISPen Executive?
In fact, the IRISPen and the IRISPen Executive are not the same
product. Both use the same hardware - the pen scanner, now in its
second version, hence “IRISPen-II” - but the software is different
even if the user interface is similar!
The IRISPen “Standard” is the basic product; the IRISPen Executive
offers every feature of the IRISPen Standard and adds a number of
major add-on capabilities. For starters, the reading capability is
extended with bar code reading, handprinting recognition and
recognition of dot matrix documents. Image adjustment allows the owner
of an IRISPen Executive to adapt the scanning to the color tones of
his documents.
Finally, speech synthesis is added and so is the multiline reading
mode. There’s more about the IRISPen Executive in this FAQ document.
The IRISPen software packages are now at version 4.0, so the name
“IRISPen 4.0” may come up too…
This is no reason for panic: as both products are based on the same
pen scanner, you can buy a software-only upgrade to turn your IRISPen
into an IRISPen Executive.
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Then what about the
IRISPen Translator? |
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True, there is also an IRISPen Translator (on the Windows
platform)! The same logic applies as for the IRISPen Executive. It’s a
different product based on the same pen scanner, so the hardware is
the same but the software is not.
Basically, the IRISPen Translator offers every feature of the IRISPen
Standard, with two major capabilities added: bidirectional sentence
translation and speech synthesis for the languages of the language
pair.
A large number of translation pairs is available: English-French,
English-German, English-Italian, English-Portuguese, English-Spanish
and French-German. (No other language pairs are expected in the coming
months.)
Speech synthesis is highly relevant for a language learning product:
you learn how the foreign language is spoken simply by listening to
the texts you scan. In other words, you train and improve your
pronunciation skills. There’s even a “replay” function that repeats
the latest sentence for you!
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How does the IRISPen
interact with other applications? |
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The IRISPen is designed to directly enter printed (or typed) text
from magazines, newspapers, catalogues, brochures, letters, memos etc.
into any Windows or Mac OS application.
The user loads the IRISPen software in the background where it stays
resident. When he wants to enter some text, he simply slides the
pen-sized scanner over the text line. The scanned image is transmitted
to the IRISPen software that recognizes the characters thanks to the
PCR-II module and inserts the recognized text in the active Windows or
Mac OS application at the cursor position.
The IRISPen uses keyboard emulation to this end, no DDE or OLE is
involved: even the least integration effort by the user is avoided,
and it works everywhere! (On the Mac OS platform, keyboard emulation
can be replaced by an AppleEvent.)
All this is done instantaneously, with unprecedented speed: on a fast
computer, it takes no more than a fraction of a second for the text to
appear on your screen.
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How does the IRISPen
work? |
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The pen-sized scanner functions as a camera that sends a greyscale
image to the computer. (The IRISPen is in fact the first and only
greyscale pen scanner!) To recapture printed (or typed) information,
you simply glide the pen over a line of text.
You start scanning as soon as you press the IRISPen onto the paper;
the scanned text is lit up by the scanner. As you scan, an image
consisting of intense points, so-called “pixels” against a lighter
background, is generated and transmitted to the computer. The IRISPen
software now takes over.
The OCR software (OCR is short for “Optical Character Recognition”)
converts the image into editable characters. Character recognition is
the process whereby an image is captured of a paper document - we
speak of “scanning” - after which the text is “extracted” from that
image.
(I.R.I.S. a leading company in this area. I.RI.S. is indeed the
developer of a wide range of OCR solutions that includes Readiris, one
of the most popular OCR packages for flatbed scanners. This OCR
solution was selected world-wide by such partners as Hewlett Packard,
Agfa, Compaq etc. You could look at it in another way and say that
only a few players out of some 50 companies are left on the OCR
market. If only the best survived, I.R.I.S. must one of them!)
Finally, the recognized text is sent promptly to the target
application where it is inserted at the current cursor position.
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What do PCR, PBR, PHR and
IBR mean? |
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The abbreviation PCR concerns the IRISPen, PBR and PHR the IRISPen
Executive. “IBR” stands for I.R.I.S. Bank Reader, we normally speak of
the IBR-2001. (Don’t confuse with “IBCR”, another I.R.I.S. product
designed to read business cards.) In each instance, the abbreviation
indicates unique and proprietary technology of I.R.I.S.
PCR stands for “Pen Character Recognition”, it indicates the powerful
recognition software from I.R.I.S. specifically designed to recognize
images scanned with a pen scanner. Given the unstable scanning by the
human hand holding a pen scanner, the recognition technology has to
cope with images of very bad quality. The images can be - and in most
cases are - highly distorted.
The highly specialized character recognition software PCR-II is
nevertheless able to cope beautifully with this low-quality
“material”. It allows real-time text recognition despite wavy,
low-contrast and poor quality images containing highly distorted font
shapes, and incorporates advanced image processing techniques and
unique artificial intelligence routines to this end.
Summing up, the PCR technology of the IRISPen offers OCR at its best:
it executes character recognition despite every handicap imaginable.
(For this version, we have a completely renewed version of the PCR
kernel which we call “PCR-II”.)
PBR is a similar technology for bar code reading. PBR, short for “Pen
Bar Code Reading”, analyzes low-quality images which are the result of
manual scanning; skewed, wavy and distorted bar codes are again dealt
with beautifully.
PHR stands for “Pen Handprinting Recognition”. It indicates I.R.I.S.’s
proprietary handprinting technology for numerics. This technology is
based on more than one million writing samples. All natural writing
styles are supported: American and European ones and sevens are
recognized with equal comfort. It requires no training phase or
imposed style to recognize somebody’s handwriting.
“IBR” stands for “I.R.I.S. Bank Reader”, we normally speak of the
IBR-2001 product for banking applications. There’s more about the
IBR-2001 in this FAQ document.
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Does it really work with
any Windows and Mac OS application? |
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Yes, it does. The IRISPen outputs to any application -
spreadsheets, databases, office software with e--mail and electronic
agendas, personal and contact managers, text editors, encoding
utilities, bookkeeping software etc. The list of supported
applications is really endless!
Wherever your cursor blinks in a Windows or Mac OS application, the
IRISPen can insert characters. Basically, the IRISPen establishes a
“cut and paste” operation: it cuts the text from your paper document
and pastes it in your Windows and Mac OS application.
Imagine you have to write a report. The IRISPen copies excerpts from
books, magazines, newspapers and typed or printed matter, and enters
them directly in your wordprocessor at the cursor position.
Mind you, this does not only mean that you can automatically enter
text in a wordprocessor text, say, a Microsoft Word or WordPerfect
document. You can also enter text or figures in for instance your
address book, in text editors such as WordPad and SimpleText, in
database fields (think Access, FileMaker, Symantec Act! etc.), in
book-keeping software and of course in popular applications such as
the spreadsheets Excel and Lotus 1-2-3.
Encode last minute data from the stock exchange into your notebook
before you have that brainstorm with your director. And why not enter
your appointments in your office software automatically? Rule the
IRISPen over your visitor’s business card to put him in your personal
organizer. Or fix that meeting right away in your electronic agenda.
Entering cheques, invoices, bank statements etc. becomes a cinch: the
IRISPen copies your numeric data directly into your database,
spreadsheet and book-keeping software.
The key to the “universality” of the IRISPen is its keyboard
emulation. The IRISPen effectively replaces your keyboard by imitating
keyboard strokes as soon as the application runs in the background, so
you can use this tool to insert text wherever you have a text cursor
on your Windows PC or Macintosh computer.
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Does the IRISPen format
the text? |
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As the IRISPen functions exactly as your keyboard does, it just
outputs text without formatting it. The formatting applies as is
active in your application. When you insert the text in a
wordprocessor where you have selected Palatino 12 point bold, any text
you scan will be in Palatino 12 point bold, whatever the original
font, typestyle etc. may have been.
As far as spreadsheets are concerned, the IRISPen has a special mode
that interprets and recreates the frames in tables. The IRISPen
automatically detects the cell borders and recreates the cell
structure in the spreadsheet spontaneously. In essence, you scan a
table line after a line and get a perfect result in Excel where every
figure is put in a separate table cell.
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Does the IRISPen scan
graphics as well? |
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Yes. There’s a reading mode where you capture small graphics,
images without performing OCR. The idea is to scan small logo’s,
signatures, handwritten notes, mathematical or chemical formulae etc.
and insert them directly into your documents.
And this is exactly what happens! As soon as you lift the pen scanner,
the scanned image is copied to the clipboard. Just execute a paste
operation to insert the graphic in your document. You can for instance
scan your signature from paper and put it in your fax document which
will be faxed electronically.
Evidently, you can only scan small graphics (no higher than 2 cm.),
and even those will always be somewhat crooked. So don’t think the
IRISPen compares to a flatbed scanner - not to mention that the
IRISPen only generates greyscale and black-and-white graphics, no
color images!
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What are the major
applications of the IRISPen? |
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The IRISPen has rightfully been called a “revolutionary” product:
not even I.R.I.S. was and is aware of every useful application users
have discovered along the way. Some of the applications signalled by
IRISPen owners were a complete surprise to I.R.I.S.!
There is indeed virtually no limit to the potential use of the
IRISPen. An American study (by IDC) indicated that 55% of all typing
done on computers is actually retyping of data that are already
available on paper. Other studies indicate that 90% of all information
is still on paper, a shocking fact for our computer age!
It is not difficult to see how some applications can benefit so
obviously from use of the IRISPen: entering data (addresses etc.) in a
database, entering figures in spreadsheets, entering small text
portions in wordprocessors (think of students in a library), entering
text and figures in data administration software, reading checks in
financial applications, reading numbers on forms and ID cards,
journalists highlighting relevant excerpts from press releases etc.
If you consider that a fast secretary types about 200 characters per
minute, you’ll quickly appreciate the productivity gain you’ll obtain
with an IRISPen. You can scan a few thousand characters per minute
with the pen scanner. (Actually, the IRISPen software processes about
1,000 characters per second, but no user can scan that fast!)
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Why should I acquire an
IRISPen when I already have an OCR solution? |
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Some people may feel that they don’t need an IRISPen as they
already have a flatbed or sheetfed scanner and an OCR software package
such as Readiris. This impression is actually dead wrong: performing
OCR with a flatbed scanner and using an OCR pen scanner are simply not
the same application.
An OCR package such as Readiris is designed to read large volumes of
text, the IRISPen is an optimized tool that reads small bits of text.
Given that task, the IRISPen effortlessly incorporates a flexibility
which no other system can offer.
We’ll give some examples where the advantages of a pen scanner for
specific applications are strikingly obvious.
- If you have to enter small portions of text into a wordprocessor,
the IRISPen is your ideal partner. Even a traditional OCR solution
is no competition when it comes to scanning excerpts and abstracts.
To read a few lines of text, you’d have to scan an entire page with
your sheetfed or flatbed scanner, draw a frame around the text
snippet to be recognized, wait until the OCR is executed, then
transfer the text result to your wordprocessor...
The IRISPen on the other hand offers real-time recognition. Slide
your pen over your text and in less than a second, it appears on
your screen. (Use the IRISPen and you can type with the stroke of a
wand. The IRISPen gives you text recognition at your fingertips.)
With the IRISPen, you can enter several thousands of characters per
minute, much more than even the fastest secretary using a keyboard.
- The IRISPen is capable of entering numbers faster and more
accurately than any human being can. Think of scanning serial
numbers on labels, on forms etc. Entering serial numbers of up to 30
characters takes about 2 seconds. It’s a text book example of
“machine beats man”!
With a flatbed scanner, you’d never consider using OCR because it
isn’t worth the bother to recapture some 30 characters. And entering
the number manually would take you, say, between 30 and 45 seconds.
Or even more: in high accuracy contexts, such numbers get entered
twice, once from left to right and a second time from right to left.
(This method is called “double data entry”.)
Here’s an example where a pen scanner is your only chance of
avoiding laborious and error-prone manual entry. (The recognition
can be limited to numeric symbols and custom symbol sets.)
- The IRISPen is an ideal solution to enter data in a database.
After each scan, the cursor repositions itself in the next field,
ready for the next scan. Imagine you want to add addresses to your
contact manager. You scan the company name, the IRISPen puts the
company in the corresponding field and relocates the cursor in the
name field. You can go on with the person’s name, his title, the
address, telephone and fax number etc. without having to reposition
the cursor each time using the keyboard or mouse.
Here again, a “standard” OCR package falls short of this task as it
does not allow you to insert data directly in a database field. You
have to
generate a structured text file which you import into your database
later on.
- The IRISPen can filter and complete the recognized text for you,
which no “traditional” OCR package will ever do. Here’s an example:
you encode price lists where you eliminiate the currency from the
figures you recognize. You will for instance ignore the “$” symbol,
because you want to enter some numeric data in a spreadsheet. The
figures are relevant, the currency isn’t. Scan “$2.99” and “2.99”
gets entered in the worksheet.
No “traditional” OCR solution will ever filter the output for you!
To do the same thing with a text generated by an OCR package, you’d
have to develop a macro and run it on your text.
- The agility of a pen scanner is such that you can scan text from
the corners of books, from bottles etc., very much like you use a
bar code
reader. It goes without saying that this kind of flexibility cannot
be obtained with a flatbed scanner, not to mention a sheetfed
scanner that only copes with separate pages.
As soon as you have to scan text from physical, non-flat objects,
the IRISPen offers a unique solution. The IRISPen as a “3D” OCR
product, you might say… Or you could call the IRISPen the first true
handy scanner!
- Slide the IRISPen across a small graphic - signature,
handwritten note etc. - and execute a paste operation to insert the
image in your document. You can now resize the graphic, move or
align it etc. Is there a simpler way of inserting logo’s,
signatures, handwritten annotations etc. in faxes and letters?
Doing the same thing with a flatbed scanner requires that you scan
the picture and import the image file afterwards in your document.
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What are the benefits of
the IRISPen? |
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Let’s sum up the benefits so far. The IRISPen is a compact and
efficient OCR device. Given the design of the IRISPen, it may very
well be the first true “handy scanner”. For owners of a notebook
computer, the IRISPen is a gift from the gods when it comes to
efficient data entry.
The same goes for everyone who has small bits of texts - addresses,
price lists etc. - to enter in his computer and for everyone who needs
instant recognition. Text recognition at your fingertips. Or text
recognition when you need, where you need it.
Although there is no equal product on the market today, the IRISPen
Standard is modestly priced around $140 and the IRISPen Executive
around $200, so the price shouldn’t be an object. I.R.I.S. feels that
any PC and Macintosh user is a potential customer of the IRISPen!
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How accurate is the
IRISPen? |
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We know that OCR is a very complex technology. Can we trust the
recognition results of the IRISPen? How good is the character
recognition the IRISPen offers?
Or if we take the IRISPen Translator (available under Windows only)
which reads and translates the scanned text: doesn’t this product
suffer for obvious reasons from recognition errors? How can a machine
give a good translation starting from bad input - a sentence which
contains errors?
The IRISPen-II incorporates completely revised intelligent character
recognition technology called PCR-II. “PCR” is the abbreviation of
“Pen Character Recognition”. PCR offers the most accurate character
recognition that has ever existed. And it has to.
As the pen scanner is hand-operated, the images acquired with the
IRISPen can be distorted in many ways: waved lines, skewed and
stretched characters can’t be avoided, even when the user has the very
regular, steady hand of a surgeon.
Of course, the user has to operate the IRISPen correctly: he should
maintain a constant scanning speed (without exceeding a certain
speed), not lift the pen during the scanning etc. These are not
unrealistic conditions. Use the IRISPen for a while and all this comes
naturally.
Another aspect is that the IRISPen always scans a broad stroke of
about 0.4” (1 cm.) high that can contain several text lines. Central
line tracking assures that only the middle line is recognized, the
other lines are ignored.
The IRISPen Translator is equipped with a special provision: when
reading errors occur for whatever reason, the user can correct these
quickly on his screen and repeat the translation to get a better
result.
Also, IRISPen Executive users have an original solution to verify the
recognition results: thanks to the speech synthesis, they hear the
text result spoken by their computer as they scan. If there was a
reading error, they’ll hear it immediately.
Given good-quality documents, you’ll obtain a recognition rate of 99%,
a most respectable result Some experienced OCR users may point out
that OCR solutions for flatbed scanners such as IRISPen yield a
recognition of 99.9% That’s true, but the situation is somewhat
different: flatbed scanners generate steady, stable images, the
IRISPen on the other hand is a “hand-held” scanner that unavoidably
generates wavy, distorted images. Taking into account the different
image quality to be processed on the one hand and the many exciting,
unique features of a pen scanner on the other hand, the very minor
trade-off is but a small price to pay…
Still not convinced? Here’s what a computer journalist wrote: “We were
able to slide the pen very fast over the text lines but nevertheless
we got perfect recognition results. The recognition rate is really
dazzling (…) Even when you don’t move the pen scanner straight across,
the recognition still is almost perfect (…)” (Jozef Schildermans in
“DiskIdee” of 10 April 2001)
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Which document qualities
does the IRISPen read? |
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You can scan and recognize documents from all sources: laser
printed, inkjet printed and typed texts, “letter quality” dot matrix
printed texts (also called “NLQ” or “25 pin” dot matrix) and draft dot
matrix printing and all printed matter such as magazines, papers,
books, brochures etc.
To read draft dot matrix documents (also called “9 pin” dot matrix) -
you can now still distinguish the individual dots that compose a
symbol -, you must enable a special setting. Such texts require highly
specialized segmentation and recognition techniques.
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Does the IRISPen read
any font? |
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In technical terms, the IRISPen is an “omnifont” OCR solution This
means that virtually all fonts can be recognized.
(
The character recognition extracts characteristics out of each symbol
shape and assigns a character. The IRISPen analyzes the characters as
human beings unconsiously analyze a number of features - strokes,
loops, holes, nodes, angles etc. - are extracted and checked against a
predefined or learnt source of knowledge.)
Omnifont systems read “virtually” all fonts. What does this nuance
mean? Recognition of any font is possible if the system manages to
isolate a sufficient number of characters. The IRISPen will not read
extremely stylized and “script”-like fonts, where character
segmentation is impossible. That’s where the “human machine” is still
superior to the computer an OCR system needs a recognizable shape to
work with, it can’t make “wild” guesses as the human mind does
effortlessly.
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Does the IRISPen read
handwritten data? |
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Handwritten symbols yield fundamentally different images and
shapes than printed symbols, and it takes specialized recognition
techniques to recognize them.
The IRISPen Executive reads handwritten (“handprinted”) numbers. If
you have dates, bank account numbers etc. to read on forms and labels,
the IRISPen Executive can do it for you.
This proprietary recognition technology supports all natural writing
styles - American and European; contrary to many other handwriting
recognition solutions, no training phase or imposed style is required.
The IRISPen doesn’t pick up the colors red and yellow, the so-called
“drop out” color, and this can be used to your advantage when you have
to scan forms. Use these colors to print the empty form where the
individual numerals must be placed in predefined blocks.
That doesn’t mean I.R.I.S. has no solutions to read handwritten
letters because I.R.I.S. does have them - only you won’t find them in
a standard OCR solution such as the IRISPen. Contact I.R.I.S. to learn
more about Formiris and related products.
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Is the IRISPen a toy? |
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Evidently, the biggest question concerning the IRISPen is: what is
an IRISPen really worth? True, the IRISPen is a “flashy” input device,
but in the best sense of the word. The IRISPen is also a professional
tool that has its place in the modern office environment!
Let’s have a look at some of its professional characteristics:
- The use of character modes: you can limit recognition to numeric
characters to enter figures only - think of forms, printed checks,
invoices, financial documents etc.
- Definition of customized character sets: the user can define
limited characters sets to be recognized. A simple example is
extension of the numeric subset with a few symbols such as $ and £
to recognize the currencies on cheques and in tables of figures.
- Recognition of table frames: the typical table format is
reconstructed in your spreadsheet by simply sliding the IRISPen over
your table of figures.
(This is an example where the IRISPen not only recognizes your text,
but already formats it for you!)
- Character conversion: the IRISPen not only recognizes your
characters, it can also replace the recognized characters. A few
examples: you read figures from a price list. You may for instance
replace “F” (Franc) by “FF.” (French Franc), or eliminate “£”
automatically to encode prices in a worksheet, or add “$” after
figures where the American currency is not indicated but where it
should be.
- Storage of software settings: the configurations you define are
stored in files. You don’t have to redefine these parameters, simply
loading the correct file that corresponds to a certain application
suffices.
So, as “magical” as the IRISPen may appear at first sight, don’t
forget that the IRISPen is also a highly professional tool that can be
customized for very specific and advanced applications.
The availability of the IRISPen Executive with bar code reading and
recognition of handprinted numbers on forms, and the IBR-2001, a
special version for the banking market, is further proof of the
professional character of the pen scanner.
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Which languages does the
IRISPen read? |
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True to its reputation as leader in multilingual OCR, the IRISPen
supports no less than 56 languages! The IRISPen can truly be called an
OCR pen scanner for our global economy.
You can read all American, Western European, Eastern European and
Baltic languages, the “Cyrillic” (Russian) languages, Greek and
Turkish. Evidently, the Russian languages and Greek have a different
alphabet!
The IRISPen addresses the need for multilingual OCR in our global
economy better than any of its competitors!
If you have the courage to read the entire list, here it is:
Afrikaans, Albanian, American English, Basque, Brazilian, Breton,
British English, Bulgarian, Byelorussian, Catalan, Corsican, Croatian,
Czech, Danish, Dutch, Estonian, Finnish, French, Frisian, Galician,
German, Greek, Hungarian, Icelandic, Indonesian, Irish Gaelic,
Italian, Lithuanian, Luxemburgh, Macedonian, Malay, Norwegian,
Nynorsk, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Scottish Gaelic,
Serbian, Slovak, Slovenian, Spanish, Swahili, Swedish, Tagalog,
Turkish and Ukranian. Add the language combinations Bulgarian +
English, Byelorussian + English, Greek + English, Macedonian +
English, Russian + English, Serbian + English and Ukranian + English.
Actually, selecting the proper document language is imperative. Based
on the selection of a language, the software knows which symbol set to
recognize. Multilingual support ensures that “exotic” characters such
as ç, ß, y and ø are recognized correctly.
As the IRISPen “emulates” your keyboard, don’t forget that it takes
the appropriate keyboard layout: enable the Greek keyboard layout to
encode Greek text. (Use the Windows control panel “Keyboard” to
install extra keyboard layouts.)
The software extensively uses linguistic databases to validate its
results. Suppose that you have to read the word “president” where an
ink stain makes the “r” look like an “f”. Looking things up in the
English lexicon, the IRISPen will detect autonomously that the word
“president” is being read and that it doesn’t make any sense to
recognize the symbol “r”. This “self-learning” technique is of course
highly dependant on the linguistic context.
Linguistics also offer useful help to solve ambiguous cases such as an
"0" which might be mistaken for a ‘0’. Another typical example is the
letter “I” and the number ‘1’ which have an identical form in many
fonts - think of texts produced on old typewriters! The linguistic
context helps to determine whether you are dealing with “I” or ‘1’'.
To read “exotic” languages, you need to enable the correct keyboard
layout under Windows! (Don’t forget that the IRISPen imitates your
keyboard.) By doing so, an appropriate font is activated.
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What happens when
alphabets are mixed? |
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As the list of supported languages indicates, the alphabets can be
mixed: when you get for instance a Russian and Greek text with Western
words in it (proper names, product names etc.), the IRISPen handles
the ambiguity effortlessly!
As the IRISPen “emulates” your keyboard, don’t forget that it takes
the “exotic” keyboard layout to read and display such texts: enable
the Russian keyboard layout to encode Russian and mixed
Russian-English data. (Use the Windows control panel “Keyboard” to
install extra keyboard layouts.)
(To mix other languages, simply select the language with the most
extended character set. If you have a document where the, say, French
translation is placed alongside an English text, you have to select
French as language to ensure that the accentuated characters such as
ç, é and ù get recognized correctly.)
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Does the IRISPen
recognize tables? |
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Definitely. Reading tables is as good an application as capturing
small text bits. And you could easily take the point of view that
reading tables makes even more sense than scanning text excerpts
retyping tables is about the most cumbersome typing job you can do.
And when boredom kicks in, typos are right around the comer...
The IRISPen doesn’t make those mistakes because you can limit
recognition to a numeric mode Thus, you exclude possible confusion
between “0” and ‘0’, between “B” and ‘8’ etc.
To enter a table into a worksheet comfortably, you’ll need a “gridded”
table. “Gridded” tables have borders around the cells. Those physical
borders between the column allow to detect the table frame, and
replace it by a cursor command. Choose <Tab> and you'll jump
automatically to the next cell. In other words, you can recreate the
typical table structure with rows and columns by simply scanning line
after line!
This only works when continuous vertical bars separate the table
columns the IRISPen software has to encounter a physical mark, detect
a border between two columns. Where the original document does not
contain vertical bars, the easiest procedure is to quickly add them
with a pen and a ruler.
Another solution is reading the figures one by one and programming the
pen button to jump to the next cell. In some cases, character
conversions can offer the answer as they allow you to replace scanned
characters by a cursor command. Here’s an example to insert the line
“2,55£ 599£ 65£” in a worksheet, it suffices to replace the symbol "£"
by <Tab> to place the individual figures in separate cells.
To round things off, add an ending code to your scans and the cursor
is relocated at the beginning of the next row automatically. In this
way, you just slide the pen scanner across your table line after line
and it is completely recreated in your spreadsheet.
If your table contains a currency symbol you want to drop, the IRISPen
will take care of that too. Let’s say that you encode a price list
into your spreadsheet. You want to input the numbers but not the
currency symbol “$” that crops up all the time. No problem the IRISPen
is equipped with a feature that filters certain characters from the
output. A character may get recognized but it doesn’t have to show up
in the output…
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Is the new Euro (_)
currency symbol recognized? |
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Now that we're talking about currencty symbols: the IRISPen
recognizes the new European currency symbol, the Euro or _,
comfortably.
However, note that the currency symbol may not show up in your text
when you study the recognition result. This is not due to the IRISPen,
but to your computer’s operating system (keyboard drivers) and the
fonts that are used when you display the text result. Western versions
of Windows ME, 2000 and 98 are equipped to represent the Euro symbol,
but it may take a software “patch” to represent the Euro symbol under
other versions of the Windows software. (This patch can be downloaded
from the Microsoft web site.)
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Which letter
sizes does the IRISPen read? |
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The IRISPen recognizes point sizes from 6 point (0.08”
high) to 22 point (0.31” or 0.78 cm. high). Doesn’t this exclude the
large titles in papers, magazines etc.? Yes, it does, but that’s
inevitable.
6 point 22 point
The reason for this is very simple: the pen-sized scanner scans
strokes of about 1 cm. high.
When you scan body text you’ll pick up several lines, but only a
single line will be recognized. This feature is called “central line
tracking”. It is the text line closest to the line guide that gets
picked up!
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What’s the
role of speech synthesis? |
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The speech synthesis or “text-to-speech” (TTS)
capability is available on the IRISPen Executive (Windows and Mac OS)
and the IRISPen Translator (Windows), not on the IRISPen Standard.
Speech synthesis opens the door for multimedia applications and allows
“hands- and eyes-busy” data entry as your computer reads out all
recognized text. You no longer have to look up to the computer screen
to verify the results: the IRISPen results are rendered by a human
voice, the most natural way of interfacing with a machine! Encode
addresses and your sound card will pronounce them, enter figures into
a spreadsheet or encoding utility, enter invoices into your
bookkeeping software and the IRISPen software reads the figures aloud
for verification.
With an IRISPen Translator, the speech synthesis (in two languages)
takes on a special meaning: all encoded text (in a “strange” language)
is pronounced. Adding speech synthesis to “on the fly” data capture
opens the door of a world of new applications. To learn how to speak a
language, you can just scan a text and hear the PC pronounce the
words. (And you can trust us: the IRISPen does not sound like a Texan
sheriff!)
On the PC platform, the owner of an IRISPen Executive is entitled to
one speech library of his choice - for instance the English
text-to-speech for the English IRISPen -, but can extend his system
further by adding other speech libraries. The owner of an IRISPen
Translator receives the two speech libraries of the language pair -
for instance the English and French text-to-speech module for an
IRISPen Translator English-French.
Both users can extend their system further by adding other speech
libraries. Ten languages are currently available: English and British
English, Brazilian, Dutch, French, German, Italian, Mexican, Russian
and Spanish.
Things are different on the Mac OS platform: the speech synthesis
capability is based on Apple’s PlainTalk speech technology.
Text-to-speech modules for English and (Mexican) Spanish are
available. The owner of an IRISPen Executive disposes of speech
synthesis in both languages if both PlainTalk modules are installed.
(The IRISPen Translator does not exist on the Mac OS platform.)
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What’s the
lifespan of an IRISPen? |
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We’re not trying to be funny here, but the lifespan is
expressed in kilometers! Now what could that possibly mean?
The component most subject to wear is the roller on the tip of the pen
scanner. (This very necessary part functions as a start switch and
allows to detect the scanning speed.) Lab tests have indicated a
lifespan of 6 kilometers.
How quickly a user has scanned 6 km. of text - scanning an A4 page in
landscape gives you 11”(27.9 cm) - is anybody’s guess. And it all
depends on the frequency of use anyway.
In practice, there’s no need to panic: the first pen scanners were
sold in the beginning of 1995. Our after sales service is happy to
report that only very rarely are pen scanners exchanged or renewed.
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What were
the major changes over the years? |
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Version 1.x of the IRISPen was introduced in the
beginning of 95. (At that time, the IRISPen was the first and only
pen-shaped OCR scanner!)
In September 95, the design of the pen scanner was revised slightly -
this was a minor esthetic improvement - and a brightness button was
added to adjust the scanning to light and dark documents.
For version 2.x, the PCR recognition kernel was revised to increase
its accuracy and support for the East-European languages such as
Romanian, Hungarian etc. was added.
As we are now some years later, it will be no surprise that there have
been major upgrades the software. Major releases of any software are
always a far-reaching “overhaul”, and the IRISPen is no exception! For
the IRISPen, version 3.0 (in the beginning of ’96) was that total
revision of the product.
The interface was completely revised. It became more esthetically
pleasing and more ergonomic. A button bar was added. Even more
importantly, version 3.0 offered a large number of new features. There
were more languages supported (28 languages, up from 16) and lots of
new capabilities were introduced: capturing small graphics, scanning
white text on a black background, adjusting the IRISPen to left-handed
use etc.
The new pen scanner product, the IRISPen Executive, came out at the
same moment as the IRISPen Standard 3.0. The Executive software (in
that version) added speech synthesis in up to 6 languages and offered
bar code reading and handprinting recognition.
Two more software versions in the pen scanner product range came out
in ’97: the IRISPen Translator, that translates the scanned text into
a “target” language, and the IBR-2001, a highly specialized pen
scanner for the banking world. (More info about both software versions
is found in this FAQ.)
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Have there
been changes in the hardware over the years? |
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So much for the software. But what about the hardware?
It’s been said that the different products and versions - IRISPen,
IRISPen Executive, IRISPen Translator - use the same pen scanner, the
same hardware. Have there been modifications in the hardware since the
first IRISPen came out in the beginning of 95?
The current version is the IRISPen-II, the second design of the pen
scanner. The hardware was completely redesigned: the optical CCD
sensor is more powerful, it now generates greyscale images. The
IRISPen-II is the first greyscale pen scanner on the market!
Greyscale images contain more image information than black-and-white
images; the end result is that the OCR gets better. You can now for
instance read text printed on a colored background. As long as there’s
some difference in intensity between the foreground (text) and the
background (frame, photo etc.), the pen scanner will pick it up.
The optical elements were equally improved, again resulting in
sharper, higher-quality images and improved recognition. More powerful
computer chips were used for the image buffer etc.: you can now scan
faster.
The parallel connection was replaced by a USB connection, offering
many advantages. The IRISPen-II is the first USB scanner on the
market!
The current software can be used with the “old” model of the pen
scanner, the black-and-white pen scanner that uses a parallel
connection. (Connect it to a parallel port of your PC, just as you
would connect a printer.)
The design of the old model was modified once, in September 1995.
There was a minor esthetic improvement - and a brightness button was
added to adjust the scanning to light and dark documents. (The pen
scanner version 1 only generated black-and-white images.)
In any case, we repeat the “old” hardware is supported by all I.R.I.S.
pen-based software products and versions, and that’s the way I.R.I.S.
intends to keep things. The owners of an old pen can purchase a
software-only upgrade to make use of the latest advances in the
IRISPen software, but they will experience some limitations because
they still use the black-and-white pen scanner.
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What’s the
product’s availability? |
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The IRISPen versions - IRISPen Standard, IRISPen
Executive and IRISPen Translator - are available as “off-the-shelf”
products.
The IRISPen Standard is also included in the software suite “I.R.I.S.
Office”, which also comprises the OCR software Readiris Pro and the
business card organizer Cardiris.
For direct orders, I.R.I.S. disposes of an on-line shop.
The I.R.I.S. Banking Reader IBR-2001 is a customizable product which
is only available from I.R.I.S.
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Can I try
the IRISPen before I actually buy the product? |
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As the product involves a hardware component, that’s
not possible.
For our software-only products, you can download demo versions from
our web site. Or you’ll find them as “add-on” software on the IRISPen
CD-ROM, as we’ve just indicated.
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Why should I
register my IRISPen licence? |
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I.R.I.S. recommends all end-users to register their
IRISPen. There are several reasons for doing so.
Registering allows us to keep you informed of future product
developments and related I.R.I.S. products.
Registering entitles you to free product support and special offers.
You can register in many ways: by filling out a registration form on
the I.R.I.S. web site, by faxing or sending in your registration card
and by calling I.R.I.S. during working hours.
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Which
support does I.R.I.S. offer? |
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I.R.I.S. offers free technical support to all
registered customers. (Free support is one of the advantages of the
licence registration.)
A hotline is available in the U.S. and in Europe during working hours;
the European support team tries to help the customers in all major
languages.
You can also fax I.R.I.S. and contact I.R.I.S. by e-mail at support@irislink.com,
and you can find troubleshooting info on the I.R.I.S. web site at
www.irispen.com and www.irislink.com.
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What are the
major features of the IRISPen? |
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Summing up all we’ve learned so far, what are the
major features of the IRISPen?
- A unique pen-sized OCR scanner allowing you to enter data
real-time into any Windows or Mac OS application - wordprocessors,
spreadsheets, databases, encoding utilities, book-keeping software
etc. This electronic highlighter is 30 times faster than manual
retyping.
- Powerful recognition of text, numeric data, bar codes and
handwritten numbers.
- The IRISPen reads all document types - newspapers, magazines,
books etc. - including greyscale and color documents, low-quality
documents and dot matrix printed texts.
- The IRISPen supports 56 languages, including the
Eastern-European, Cyrillic languages and Greek.
- Easy-to-install (USB based) device and easy operation – text
recognition at the stroke of a wand.
- Text-to-speech capability offers auditive feedback of all read
data.
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