Why is the speed so important?
Let us take the example of small-sized documents, a land register on A1 format. In Alsace, in the Moselle (France), there are more than 30.000 registers of 250 pages, 7,5 million pages to be digitized. Jumboscan will save you at least 2 seconds per scan compared to its competitors which in this case = 22,5 million seconds or 3 YEARS of work! (22,5M / 3600 dryness / 8H / 242 days). It takes 6 seconds to digitize a picture of 2 pages of A1 format with 300 dpi. For customers using A1 formats, several Jumboscans would be best for increased time saving.

Why digitize?
To store
To transmit
To consult directly or within a network
To zoom on a document
To duplicate ad infinitum without loss
To file
To restore documents
To gain space, companies sometimes have whole buildings reserved for storing plans.
To replace microfilm.

Why not take a color photo?
Because a photograph is expensive, very expensive. To obtain the quality of a Jumboscan picture, one would need a film plan of 4x5 inches.
60.000 plan films of 4x5 inches at $15 per plan
60.000 film development at $3 per plan
60.000 scans on a high resolution scanner at $6 per plan
Total cost = close to $1.5 million
Not counting the time and expenses of storing film.

Will the lighting damage my fragile documents? 
No. 
After checks of our system of lighting, the laboratory authorized us to digitize of the masterpieces. Indeed, after having taken measurements, the light quantity is of 11.171 luxes, during the time of the twenty seconds digitalization. The rise in temperature during this short moment is to the maximum of 1°C. If the document would remain permanently under lighting the rise in temperature would be then to the maximum of 5° C, but there still that remains in the standard of a light known as " cold ". To be even more precise, our system is composed of 6 lamps of 11.500 lumens 150 W Placée at 1 meter of the document, each lamp thus has a solid angle of 12,35 steradians, the reflectors doubles this value. That is to say 6 X 11.500 / 12,35 X 2 = 11.171 lm/m2 or 11.171 luxes. The luminous energy received by the documents is of: 20 (seconds) X 6 (lamps) X 11.171 lumens = 1.340.520 talbots (t) either 1962 joules.  (1 talbot = 1,464 X 10-3 joules)
By comparison a catch in photographic view with flashes would require two flashs of 600 joules or 1200 joules, the weak difference is absolutely not significant. Finally the temperature of color of our system of lighting is of 5400°Kelvin, known as " daylight " it has a continuous flow and without spectral
line.

Is 720 Mb not too high?
What seems significant today, may not be so tomorrow. The power and capacity of computers multiplies by 1000 every 10 years. Not forgetting that an image of 720 Mb can be compressed to 100 Mb almost without loss. However, not everyone works in color, which means that a grayscale image of 240 Mb is compressed to 45 Mb and a black and white to 30Mb without loss, leading to 213 images on a CD-Rom or 1000 images on DVD-Rom.

Why digitize the plans created on CAD computers?
In most cases, paper plans are corrected by hand, or bear indications, a field report or the name of the person in charge. Last-minute corrections or essential information!
Otherwise the paper plans would not be kept at all.
The ISO 9002 company standard renders necessary paper plan archives.

Why not digitize with a roller scanner?
There are several disadvantages:
1 – they are limited to an A0 format
2 – they are not easy to use
3 – they cannot be used with damaged or torn documents
4 – they cannot be used with documents pasted on a paperboard or suspended by wooden rods, with books, registers, glass plates, laminated plans etc.
5 - they are limited to a certain thickness
6 – the rollers may leave marks on the document
7 - they do not accept laminated plans.

Is 150 dpi sufficient for large maps?
Yes, in line art (Bitmap), a size 2 character of 1 mm is perfectly legible. Any smaller and one would need a scanner in grayscale.

How long does the data last?
With compatible products on the market, floppy disks have moved from 170 KB to 320 KB to 740 KB then to 1,2 Mb, which are recopied onto hard disks, engraved on CD-Roms which we can recopy onto DVD-Roms etc. Digital data can be copied ad infinitum!
Update from March 2000: a new CD-Rom of 140 Gb will soon be available!

How may a 1m x 1,5m document be digitized?
By using Jumboscan on a copy stand.

How may a transparent document be digitized?
By using Jumboscan on a repro stand with a lightbox.

Is higher resolution possible for text or features?
Yes, the resolution may be doubled.

Is it possible that a more advanced solution will be developed?
This would be difficult as Jumboscan reaches not only the electronic or data-processing limits, but the mechanical and optic limits too.

How may a 3m x 2m document be digitized?
One of two ways:
1 – the document is positioned against a wall using adhesive, magnets or a vacuum table (large format), and Jumboscan is within 3,9m of the axis.
2 – if there is a ceiling of at least 4,5m, it is possible to place the document on a table and suspend the camera from the ceiling within the axis of 3,9m. Optics of 120mm (contrary to the standard 150mm) are available, making it possible to reduce the height needed to 3,1m.

How may a very large book be digitized?
Microfilming banks of registers involves using two jacks and two surfaces which place the two sections of the book under a pane.

How may a gondolé document be digitized?
If microfilming banks of registers is not effective, increasing the optical depth of the field in diaphragmant may then be possible.

How may the focus be adjusted?
AUTOMATICALLY, using the computer software.

Does Jumboscan have problems with conical projections because of the optics?
No, there should be no confusion with an aerial shot, which may, indeed, lead to such a problem.

With what concerns the JumboScan my interest is drawn by the optical distortion on the "parameter".
The strength of blending can be at its maximum but how has distortion been put aside and what causes the lens not to see each point directly on the vertical from top to bottom? Especially
regarding aerophotography putting aise this error ortocorrection (of course, also remembering that distortion comes from the contours of the earth and relief. ) Is a scanned picture worked digitally also, for certain cameras and lens the parameters are quite trivial but the picture's quality can't avoid getting worse.

We confirm that the distortion shown in "parameter" is 0,005%, period.

This distortion is only accurate for PLANS, such a map, an artwork, a photography. In this case, Jumboscan's optic correct distortion, i.e. the lens just focus on each point, directly at the vertical axis, from top to bottom.

JumboScan performs a lot to scan aerials photographies.

Aerial photographies scanned with Jumboscan will be perfect and without any geometry error. You will even never note the standard distorsion (Average Quadratic Error) of 0,005 % i.e. 10µm for a 20cm photo wide.

To correct conic pojections errors (earth rotundity, earth relief), you must use a stantard projection software and orthocorrection, there are numerous on the market.

But you cannot afford to don't use Jumboscan, a perfect scanner, whp dpes perfect scans without geometry errors, because there is no software to correct these errors, because, by definition, these errors are variable.