Re: PDF or JPEG for map scanning?

Hi Michael,

We have had large quantities of Technical Drawings ranging from A4 thru 
to roll size (big :) ) professionally scanned, they provided them in 
Tiff format, whilst some were large, most had large amounts of 'white' 
so the majority of sizes were not unreasonable, They also provide a 
database of the documents which was particularly important since we had 
in excess of 5000 drawings! They are provided an interface program for 
the database which was also a tiff viewer.

If I can help out further, please feel free to contact me!

gerry


Michael Lake wrote:
> Hi all
>
> I'm getting my caving clubs entire map library scanned at a scanning
> bureau. I have yet to discuss with them what format they would use but would
> like to me as knowledgeable as possible when I do so. 
>
> Question: For line drawings should I get them scannned and saved as PDF or JPEG?
>
> Info: They range from A4 to 1.5m long x 1m wide. Mostly B/W and 300 dpi is fine.
>       Purpose of the scanning is to provide access to the data and as 
>       anarchive in case library burns down.
>       Number of maps ~ 200
>
> Pros/Cons:
>  
> + jpg: Small and can be easily edited/manipulated by Gimp etc.
> - jpg: I know that jpeg may have artefacts with lines and it was designed for
> continuous tone images such as photographs but maps are line drawings, though
> faded and smudged.
> - jpg: No size embedded in the image. It's just pixels wide x height.
>
> +pdf: Image size is embedded in scan. It will print at the correct size 
>       (which is important for maps).
> -pdf: Harder to post process. Imagemagick can convert to jpg via ghostscript.
>       Windows users probably won't be able to rotate, crop or scale.
>       Gimp does not handle PDF well.
>
> I have read at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portable_Document_Format
> a bit about how PDF stores images. Answer=Many different ways. JPEG does it one
> way. Scanning as a TIFF I think will end up being too big in file sizes.
>
> Does anyone have any advice / experience here? 
>   
> Mike Lake
>
>   

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