[comp.graphics] How big are scanned bitmaps and how small can they be made?

brad@looking.UUCP (Brad Templeton) (03/25/89)

I would be interested in experiences people have had in scanning pages
of text or line drawings and reducing them.  Do people have any figures
for average sizes of the reduced bitmaps?

Tools like FAX use run-length encoding and some huffman to reduce their
bitmaps.  Are there any tools around that go significantly better.
(Other than OCR, of course.)

How small does a typical 8.5 by 11 page of stuff get when scanned at
300 by 300 and compressed?  I would guess 40K, but I would like to
find something that can take it down to 10K by being really smart about
what's being scanned.
-- 
Brad Templeton, Looking Glass Software Ltd.  --  Waterloo, Ontario 519/884-7473

rick@pcrat.UUCP (Rick Richardson) (03/25/89)

In article <3003@looking.UUCP> brad@looking.UUCP (Brad Templeton) writes:
>I would be interested in experiences people have had in scanning pages
>of text or line drawings and reducing them.  Do people have any figures
>
>How small does a typical 8.5 by 11 page of stuff get when scanned at
>300 by 300 and compressed?  I would guess 40K, but I would like to

Define 'typical'.  An image I have here that is just few line drawings
has these stats:
			TIFF		TIFF		TIFF
	   SIZE		NO CODING	PACKBITS	LZW
figure	2271 x 2540	721,702		60,980		24,290
	x 1 bit

That seems to be close to your guesstimate when LZW is used inside
the TIFF file.  But there really isn't much info in this drawing.

-- 
Rick Richardson | JetRoff "di"-troff to LaserJet Postprocessor|uunet!pcrat!dry2
PC Research,Inc.| Mail: uunet!pcrat!jetroff; For anon uucp do:|for Dhrystone 2
uunet!pcrat!rick| uucp jetroff!~jetuucp/file_list ~nuucp/.    |submission forms.
jetroff Wk2200-0300,Sa,Su ACU {2400,PEP} 12013898963 "" \d\r\d ogin: jetuucp

elt@entire.UUCP (Edward L. Taychert) (03/28/89)

In article <3003@looking.UUCP>, brad@looking.UUCP (Brad Templeton) writes:
 
> How small does a typical 8.5 by 11 page of stuff get when scanned at
> 300 by 300 and compressed?  I would guess 40K, but I would like to
> find something that can take it down to 10K by being really smart about
> what's being scanned.

It all depends on the source, but fax group 4 format should get you
down in your target numbers.

For Brad: Copyright 1989, Edward L. Taychert - All rights reserved.


Ed Taychert  
	    ...!rochester!rocksanne!entire!elt

	

kevin@jtsv16.UUCP (kevin) (03/29/89)

In article <3349@entire.UUCP> elt@entire.UUCP (Edward L. Taychert) writes:
>In article <3003@looking.UUCP>, brad@looking.UUCP (Brad Templeton) writes:
> 
>> How small does a typical 8.5 by 11 page of stuff get when scanned at
>> 300 by 300 and compressed?  I would guess 40K, but I would like to
>> find something that can take it down to 10K 
>
>It all depends on the source, but fax group 4 format should get you
>down in your target numbers.
>

Lets see, 8.5 * 300 = 2550 pixels per scan line, 11 * 300 = 3300 scanlines.
Thats 1,051,875 bytes for the image.  Taking this down to 10k bytes
is about 105:1 compression.  Group 4 is not going to do it for you.
Ok, maybe if your page is entirely blank.  

I have done some playing with Group 3 and 4 compression and typical
business documents get somewhere between 10:1 and 20:1 compression,
depending on the content.  You will have to try something else to
get the kind of compression you want.  I read some
time ago that fractal techniques can be used to yield amazing 
compression factors, but I don't know anything else about it.


-- 
Kevin Brighton                          kevin@jtsv16.jts.com    
JTS Computer Systems Ltd.       { suncan | geac | uunet }!jtsv16!kevin
Toronto, Ontario, CANADA                   +1 416 665 8910