Knowledge Base

Search Knowledge Base

Inicio
/ Knowledge Base
/ IRIS Pen Executive 6 (Win)
/ CHAPTER 3 STARTING UP

CHAPTER 3 STARTING UP

21/10/11

By Admin User

RUNNING THE IRISPEN

To start the IRISPen:

• From the Windows Start menu, select All Programs, I.R.I.S. Applications, then IRISPen, or click the application shortcut on your desktop.

The IRISPen startup screen appears for a few seconds. It displays the version and copyrights of the IRISPen software. Next, the IRISPen Application window and two additional windows are displayed: the Image Quality Check window and the Status window. The IRISPen icon appears in the notification area of the Windows task bar.

When running the software for the first time, one more window automatically appears on top of the others, prompting the user to calibrate the pen scanner.

• If you are running the software for the first time, calibrate the pen scanner. See: Starting up, Calibrating the pen scanner.

USER INTERFACE

The user interface is composed of 3 windows: the Application

window, the Image Quality Check window, and the Status window. The IRISPen icon appears in the Windows task bar and confirms that the application is running.

The Application window

The Application window is the IRISPen's main window. It contains a menu bar that gives access to all software commands, a toolbar

for quick access to all frequent commands, and the a window pane

containing the basic settings.

The window can be minimized with a click on the Minimize button or on the OK button. To reopen it, simply double-click or right- click on the Status window, or use the IRISPen icon on the Windows task bar (see below).

The Image Quality Check window

The Image Quality Check window appears by default as a semi- transparent window, below the Application window. When scanning, it displays the "raw" grayscale image of the scanned area. Its purpose is to enable the user to view and check the quality of his scans.

You can easily drag the window to another position on your screen. The chosen position will be maintained if you save your settings. You can remove the transparency of the window with a right-click of the mouse.

You can close the window. To reopen it, select Image Quality Check from the Application window's Options menu or use the IRISPen icon on the Windows task bar (see below).

The Status window

The Status window appears by default below the Application window. It displays the OCR options that have been chosen in the Application window.

You can drag the window to another position on your screen. The chosen position will be maintained if you save your settings.

You can close the window. To reopen it, you will simply select the option Status Window from the Application window's Options menu or use the IRISPen icon on the Windows task bar (see below).

The IRISPen icon

The IRISPen icon appears by default in the notification area of the Windows task bar. It confirms that the application is running and that the pen scanner is connected. If the pen is detached from the USB port, the notification area will indicate it.

You can restore the application with a simple click on the icon. A right-click on the icon also allows you to enable the Image Quality Check window, the Status window, and the Scan Test window.

CALIBRATING THE PEN SCANNER

Before you start using the IRISPen, you must calibrate the pen scanner. If you don't calibrate the scanner, the image quality will be low and the recognition results may be mediocre.

You are automatically prompted to calibrate the pen scanner when running the software for the first time. All you need to do is push your pen on a white piece of paper for a few seconds. The software indicates when the calibration is complete.

Caution:

If the ambient light changes - imagine you get from natural to artificial lighting or conversely, imagine you move to a much lighter or darker place, or even move to a completely different environment, etc., you may need to re-execute the calibration of your pen scanner.

Tip:

Check the scanning quality

You can always check the scanning quality in the Image Quality Check and the Scan Test windows (see: Starting up, User interface). If the image quality appears degraded, please re-execute the calibration of your pen scanner.

To re-execute the calibration:

• Select Calibrate from the Options menu in the Application window or, from the Scan Test window, press the Calibrate button, then push again your pen on a white piece of paper for a few seconds. The software indicates when the calibration is complete.

CHANGING THE USER INTERFACE LANGUAGE

The user interface of the IRISPen is available in a wide range of languages. The language can be easily changed according to your needs.

To change the user interface language:

• Select User Interface Language from the Settings menu in the Application window.

• Select the needed language from the drop-down list, then click OK to confirm.

The user interface automatically appears in the newly chosen language.

THE SCAN TEST WINDOW

The Scan Test window displays the black-and-white version of the image you generate with the pen scanner. The recognized data appears just below the scanned image.

Thanks to the Scan Test window, you can test your first scans and check the results before you start with definitive scanning. If necessary, you can operate some image adjustments to improve the results. You can save your images, load and recognize previously scanned images, access the calibration dialog box, etc.

Bad quality images

As you will notice, the IRISPen is able to recognize data on bad quality images, e.g. on low-contrast documents where the background nearly has the same color as the text, on highly distorted images with wavy, skewed or even contracted lines (see above figure). However, if the recognition result is not satisfactory, you should use the Scan Test window to make a few more tests and if necessary, adjust the image.

To access the Scan Test window:

• In the Application window, click the Scan Test button on the toolbar or select Scan Test from the Options menu.

As soon as you scan some data, the image produced appears in the upper part of the window. The recognized text is displayed just below the image. Any unrecognized character is marked with the rejection symbol "~" (the rejection symbol can be modified - see: Learn how to... Define the symbol for unknown characters).

Load image: this option allows you to load prescanned images and perform character recognition on them; the supported file format is the Windows bitmap (*.bmp) format.

Save image: this option allows you to save the images you generate; the available file formats are: black-and-white and grayscale Windows bitmaps (*.bmp).

Calibrate: allows the user to re-execute the pen's calibration.

Fit to window

The option Fit to Window ensures that the entire image is displayed in the window, whatever the length of the scanned line may be. It is activated by default.

When a long line of text is being scanned, you can deactivate the option. If you do so, the scanned line will no more be compressed horizontally and only a portion of the line will be displayed. You can use the image scroll bar to view the scanned data entirely.

Recognize

The Recognize option is activated by default. All images you scan or open are thus automatically recognized.

Note that in the text zone, you can get directly to the end or the beginning of the recognized text: place your cursor in the text zone, then press the End or Home key from your keyboard.

The Recognize option is not useful when scanning graphics. If you have selected Grayscale image to clipboard or Black&White image to clipboard in the Application window, the Recognize option will be replaced by Image to clipboard.

IMAGE ADJUSTMENT

The image adjustment features enable to optimize the image generated with the pen for the recognition process. These options will be particularly useful if you scan very bad quality documents, documents with colored background, or low-contrast documents where the background virtually has the same color as the text.

Tip:

Remember that yellow is the IRISPen's invisible color. Do not try to make the IRISPen pick up any data printed in yellow.

To operate some image adjustments:

• Access the Scan Test window: in the Application window, click the Scan Test button on the toolbar or select Scan Test from the Options menu.

• Manually change the Brightness and/or Despeckle level(s).

After each adjustment, the scanned image is directly adapted and the recognition re-executed if the Recognize option is selected.

Brightness

Brightness means the black-and-white threshold of the image. The brightness adjustment is by default Automatic. You should leave this default setting for all normal documents.

Manual

When dealing with bad quality documents, changing manually the brightness level may level the quality of the black&white image and so improve the text recognition.

To set the brightness manually, click Manual, then slide the indicator to the left (lighten) or to the right (darken). If you darken the image, more pixels become black in the black-and- white image; if you lighten the image, less pixels become black.

Despeckle

The option Despeckle makes it possible to remove small spots from the images. By default, the option is turned off.

To activate the despeckling, slide the indicator to the right. You can remove dots from 1 to 20 pixels.

! Caution: Be careful not to erase spots that are too big, otherwise you may start erasing the dots on the letter "i", portions of dot matrix letters, etc.

THE IRISPEN WIZARD

The IRISPen Wizard offers the quickest and easiest way of defining your settings. It proposes a series of templates with pre-defined settings meant for the reading of certain types of data: text, text from columns, numeric tables, etc. These templates can be either used as such, or modified to fit more particular needs. Up to three (modified) templates can be further assigned to a preset button directly accessible from the Application window (or, alternatively, set to function as current settings). When it comes to actually capture a certain type of data, all you need to do is press the right preset button, then start the scanning!

By default, the preset buttons are already assigned to the reading of English Text, Text from columns, Text tables.

The Wizard as well as the three presets can be accessed and activated directly from the toolbar. Once a preset button has been enabled, the corresponding settings become the current settings.

Tip:

To save time, do not hesitate to use the wizard extensively. First make up your mind about the types of data to be read. Second, "prepare" the software for the reading by defining the corresponding presets. Whenever needed, just select the right preset and start the scanning!

You can save as many sets of settings as you wish. With the Save Settings and Open Settings options from the File menu, you will be able to save and reopen your custom presets and current settings. See: Learn how to... Customize/save/reopen settings.

How to define presets with the Wizard?

• Click the Wizard button on the toolbar. The Wizard workflow is divided up into different steps. You will get from one step to the other by simply clicking on Next.

• Step 1

In the list of proposed templates, choose the template that corresponds to the type of data to be read, e.g.: text, numeric table, etc. Remember that a set of options is already pre-selected in the Wizard.

Alternatively, select an already existing preset from the Presets tab. It will serve as basis for your custom preset. Select either the current settings or one of the existing presets. Click Next to get to the next step.