|
|
Product Overview
| Before using PPP, we should review its features.
|
| Precise Page Positioning is an image batch processor program with quality control capabilities. This means that you set up parameters, select the images for processing, and PPP does the work automatically in the background. When it finishes the job, you can visually check the result, edit and re-process some images if necessary, usually using slightly modified processing parameters.
| |
| Now it's time to learn more about processing parameters and the batch processor generally. Basically, the batch processor loads the input image into the memory, finds the image boundaries, and extracts the useful part from the input image. This extracted image is called the subimage. Then PPP creates a clean, white canvas and places the subimage on it. Finally, it saves this new image, called the output image, to the hard disk. While PPP is extracting the subimage and placing it on a new canvas, it clears the unwanted dirt and speckles from the image, and straightens it out if necessary. In Figure 1-1 you can see the phases of this process.
| |
| Figure 1-1. Phases of Image Processing
| |
| Although though the processing totally automatic, you need to set up some options and parameters before you start processing your images.
| |
| The most important parameters are the following:
|
| · | Top, left, right, and bottom margins
|
| · | Alignment of subimage (keep the original position, align to margin, or center in page)
|
| · | Canvas size of output image
|
| · | Size of border that must be cleaned
|
| The most important features of the batch processor are the following:
|
| · | Automatically detects the boundaries of the subimage.
|
| · | Checks if subimage is inside of margins.
|
| · | Aligns subimage to a margin or to center of the canvas.
|
| · | Handles two sets of margins -- one for odd and one for even pages.
|
| · | Can turn images 90, -90, or 180 degrees before processing them.
|
| · | Can use predefined size for output images, or keep the canvas size of the input images.
|
| · | Removes speckles from images.
|
| · | Can cut borders of images to get rid of black borders or ragged page edges.
|
| · | As an additional processing phase, PPP can resize the subimage (optional)
|
| Once the output images are generated, you can investigate them. PPP shows the input and the output images side by side. It displays the subimage boundaries and the margins, so that you can check if the result is acceptable, as shown in Figure 1-2. If you find that some of the output images are not perfect, you can edit them directly, or edit the input image, and then process it again. If necessary, modify processing parameters and resubmit the image to the batch.
| |
| Figure 1-2. Investigating an Image.
| |
| It is possible that the batch processor will find an error while processing an image. Though there can be several types of errors, the most important one is the margin error. This happens when the subimage is so large that it sticks out of the margins. PPP sends the erroneous images to the Exception List and the good images to the Good Files List. After processing, you should always visually check the images in the Exception List and correct the errors, because an error means that the generated output image is probably wrong, or was not generated. If desired, also investigate all the images in the Good File List, but this is not as important as investigating the images in the Exception List. As long as there are images in the Exception List, the job can not be considered finished.
| |
| PPP automatically saves the result of every single operation to a LOG file. Later a lot of information can be extracted from that file; for example, the date and time of processing, a list of processed files, the errors, the processing parameters, etc.
| |
© 1998-2002 ELAN GMK
|
What Are Jobs?
ELAN Precise Page Positioning™
