Fujitsu Integrates New Document Imaging Technology Into Production-Level Scanners

Fujitsu Computer Products of America, Inc., a market leader in document imaging scanners and services, today announced that three of its top-selling production-level scanners have been upgraded with additional technology enhancements for improved document imaging productivity. The fi-5900C color, production-level scanner now comes standard with “Intelligent MultiFeed Function” for advanced control of its three independent ultrasonic multifeed sensors. Additionally, the Fujitsu fi-5650C (sheet-fed) and Fujitsu fi-5750C (flatbed) color, low-volume production scanners are going to include Kofax® hardware-assisted VirtualReScan® (VRS) 4.1 Professional processing, making them the only available scanners with hardware VRS under $10,000.

“Intelligent MultiFeed Function” uses industry-leading ultrasonic multifeed detection and adds additional innovative ways to configure either specific non-detect or detect areas for the ultrasonic sensors to check for overlapping documents. Ultrasonic multifeed detection is the premier way to prevent multiple documents feeding through a scanner at the same time. The technology consists of two sensors -- a transmitter below the paper transport and a receiving sensor above. The transmitter emits an ultrasonic wave through the document. Normally, only one document is being fed through at a time, causing this wave to pass through the paper and directly into the top sensor. If there is a multifeed, the sensor will trigger. The fi-5900C offers three independent ultrasonic sensors to give the customer the best flexibility and performance for a wide variety of scanning applications.

Additionally, the Intelligent MultiFeed Function feature contained on the Fujitsu fi-5900C can ignore documents that sometimes trigger false multifeed alerts, like photographs, labels and envelopes and will also ensure that no data is lost if multiple documents feed through simultaneously. If a user encounters a multifeed, a message pops up on the user’s PC indicating that a multifeed has occurred. The scanner then pauses so that users can immediately and easily eject the documents. All you need to do is place the documents back into the feeder, restart the scan and the remaining documents in the batch will be intelligently recognized based on one of three selected Intelligent MultiFeed Function modes. This new functionality is beneficial for many industries with paper intensive applications such as healthcare, banking, financial, invoice processing, state or local government, insurance, and service bureau’s.

Utilizing the hardware-assisted VRS 4.1 Professional on the fi-5650C and fi-5750C allows customers to maximize the capabilities of their document scanner for faster, more reliable results. For configurations with hardware-assisted processing using certain VRS functions and scanner setting combinations, the overall throughput is drastically improved over software only VRS processing.

VRS enables high accuracy in data captured from scanned documents, significantly reducing the need to manually correct the results of intelligent character recognition (ICR) and optical character recognition (OCR). As documents pass through a scanner, VRS performs a multi-point inspection of each image. Any inconsistencies are immediately corrected by VRS so that only the straightest, most readable images are processed. Its Advanced Clarity feature also offers more image quality options and the ability to process documents that were once considered impossible to process due to noisy backgrounds. This feature allows users to maximize scanning time and process more images without human intervention. Other key features include:

· Content-based Rotation: Adjusts skewed images, even completely rotating upside down ones, so all captured images are oriented in the same direction.

· Intelligent Blank Page Deletion: Intelligently determines if a page is blank and can be eliminated from the workflow, saving valuable storage space and manual evaluation of individual blank pages.

· Automatic Color Detection: Correctly identifies and retains color when it is integral to a document (e.g., logo, photo, date stamp) and eliminates it when it is not (e.g., colored paper stock). Additionally, users can convert on the fly from black & white to color (or vice versa), without the need to adjust scanner settings, or use separator sheets or patch codes.

· Network-friendly Images: Image noise removal compacts file size, reducing network traffic and storage requirements.

The Fujitsu fi-5900C and fi-5750C will be on display this week at the 2007 AIIM Conference & Expo, April 16-19, at the Boston Convention & Exhibition Center.