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APT BookScan 2400™ Frequently Asked Questions
Volume
Operator
Scan Reliability
Image Quality
Material
Who are your competitors?
Per page cost
What is the expected MSTF (Mean Scans to Failure) of the APT 2400?
What are the likely failures?
What is the maximum volume/year?
What is the expected lifetime of the machine?
A:Our projected MTBF for the APT 2400 is between 250-300 hours. At a net throughput of 1,000 scans per hour, the MSTF would come to about 250-300K pages.
To date we have identified the following likely points of failure:
- Primary arm motion motors; Kirtas is seeking to upgrade them with longer life motors,
- Canon EOS-1 camera shutter subassemblies. Kirtas’ installed base of APT systems have performed significantly better than the rated 200-250Kcycle life published by Canon for this product family.
- The clamps and the pickup vacuum head. However, we have experienced very few actual failures for these field replaceable units.
Lifetime: We’ve designed the machine to work for at least 5 million cycles (or 10 million pages scanned), which amounts to 5 years at 1 shift per day. With contract maintenance, parts will be replaced to ensure full machine availability until a future determination of end of life or platform obsolescence which will be announced with ample notification.
What is the level of skill and training required to operate
the device?
What degree of operator supervision is required?
A:The level of mechanical skill required is similar to changing toner cartridges in copiers or printers; familiarity with PC applications and basic photo editing software is helpful. Initial training, including use of Kirtas BSE image post-processing software is typically provided in less than eight hours. A follow-up training session (<8 hours) will be appropriate for image quality (IQ) optimization and quality control.
What is the observed mis-scan rate (skipped or repeated pages)?
A: Our page turning accuracy specification is 1 error per 1,000 pages. The observed rate is less than that and depends somewhat on the physical characteristics of the book. When turn failures happen, they are usually multi-feeds while scanning the first or last pages of a book. A multi-feed detection option is being developed for books with sticky pages.
What is the observed Modulation Transfer Function (MTF) and
spatial distortion?
Maximum resolution and bit depth?
Color Modes?
A:MTF is essentially determined by the digital camera and the lens we use. We will be posting our optics MTF at different resolutions on our website.
Our resolution is determined directly by the size of the camera chip relative to the size of the pages in a book. For a 16.6 megapixel camera, such as the one currently used on the APT 2400, the maximum resolution would be about 600 dpi for 4.5” x 7” (the smallest book size) and decreasing to about 300 dpi for the 11” x 14” book (maximum size). The cameras we use are all RGB 36 bit depth (12 bit per channel). The state-of-the-art internal digital camera processor, such as the Canon DIGIC II, renders excellent quality, low noise images at all resolutions.
A feature that is unique to the APT 2400 is that the digitization speed for full color images is the same as in grayscale. Indeed the APT 2400 is the only “scanner” in the world where color comes at no productivity cost!
How does your technology perform on various bindings such as stapled, sewn and glued?
How effective is it at flattening pages either physically or in software?
If done by software, what is the effect on the MTF?
Can the unit scan unbound material?
A:The APT 2400 works with perfect bound (sewn and glued) documents and magazines. Three-hole binders seem to work fine as well, although we’ve done only very limited testing. We’re also finding we can turn some loose pages with certain modifications to our firmware.
Page flattening is currently exclusively mechanical, via the V-shaped cradle and the side clamping. Where printed matter encroaches the gutter, we sometimes observe some slight curvature. Future image processing software releases will correct those curvatures automatically.
What is the difference between your technology and, for instance, Digibook or the Digitizing Line from 4DigitalBooks?
A: Most of our competition offer manual only book scanners. The Digibook, made by I2S has the best combination of imaging and post-processing software, but remains a manual book scanner nonetheless.
The APT 2400 works with perfect bound (sewn and glued) documents and magazines. Three-hole binders seem to work fine as well, although we’ve done only very limited testing. We’re also finding we can turn some loose pages with certain modifications to our firmware. Page flattening is currently exclusively mechanical, via the V-shaped cradle and the side clamping. Where printed matter encroaches the gutter, we sometimes observe some slight curvature. Future image processing software releases will correct those curvatures automatically.
Over the lifetime of the device, what is your estimated cost per page?
A: The cost per page will depend on several parameters such as number of shifts, level of maintenance contract, labor cost and operator Efficiency. Our cost analysis, based on a 2-shift, 5 day/week operation with 90% machine availability, suggests that the cost per page will be less than 2¢ per page.
Please contact us at info@kirtas.com, and a Kirtas representative will be glad to answer any additional questions.