We have hinted about it. We have shared bits of information here and there. And in at least one post we’ve said it was coming soon. The wait is over, LEADTOOLS 18 has been released! The new LEADTOOLS Anywhere™ native libraries for WinRT, iOS, OS X, Android and Linux are certainly the marquee update in this exciting release, but there are also many enhancements within the LEADTOOLS Document, Medical and Multimedia technology for Win32/64, .NET and HTML5.

LEADTOOLS Anywhere™

LEADTOOLS Anywhere™ extends LEAD Technologies' award winning LEADTOOLS Imaging SDKs to every major development platform. This initiative began last year with the release of SDKs for HTML5 and WinRT. The HTML5 SDKs made it possible to develop zero footprint web applications and WinRT laid the necessary foundation for porting LEADTOOLS to other native platforms. With LEADTOOLS 18, LEAD has further expanded the reach of its Imaging SDKs by offering native libraries for iOS, OS X, Android and Linux development. All core LEADTOOLS imaging technology is natively supported in each of these platforms, including viewing, annotation and markup, OCR, OMR, forms processing, 1D and 2D barcode, PDF, DICOM and support for over 150 file formats and 200 image processing functions.

Visual Studio Magazine has published its annual Reader's Choice Awards and LEADTOOLS was once again declared a winner for the 11th straight year. The survey was conducted in August with nearly 500 readers casting their votes and giving their opinions about their favorite productivity enhancers. In 2013, over 400 products were in the running, and LEAD Technologies is proud to have emerged as a winner in three categories.

• Gold Medal in Component: Imaging, Image Processing & Drawing Tools —
  LEADTOOLS Imaging Pro
• Silver Medal in Component: Text, OCR, Scanning & Barcode —
  LEADTOOLS Document Imaging Suite
• Bronze Medal in Mobile Development Tools and Frameworks —
  Windows Phone SDK technology in LEADTOOLS Imaging Pro and above

To see the full article from Visual Studio Magazine, you can download the PDF from their website.

Want to hear a cool fact? LEADTOOLS Version 18 was released one year ago (January 30th, 2013). So to celebrate V18's first birthday, LEAD is giving you a present! Today we released a major update to LEADTOOLS Version 18, highlighted by many new features and enhancements to the entire Document, Medical, Multimedia and Imaging product lines.

There is a lot to be said about this release, so your best bet is to check out the press release or see a list of all the new features and enhancements. We hope you enjoy this update and join us in saying "happy birthday LEADTOOLS V18!"

Recently, we had a long-time customer provide some high praise for LEADTOOLS and our technical support department. When we followed up to find out what made their experience so great, they had a lot to say about how LEADTOOLS Document Imaging has saved them countless hours and engineering resources over the past 8 years.

Quote Software, Inc., has been in the business of creating custom software focused on construction estimating and Building Information Modeling (BIM) estimating since 1991. As they expanded into new construction markets they approached LEADTOOLS for help in adding support for loading, saving, viewing and annotating blueprints stored within large PDF and TIFF files.

A new, major version of LEADTOOLS is right around the corner. Version 19 is packed full of incredible Document, Medical and Multimedia Imaging technology with many new features and enhancements across the board. Developers can do more than ever before with LEADTOOLS V19.

Document Imaging

• Document and image viewers for all platforms
  • New SVG engine for smooth scrolling and zooming of documents
  • Search text and use annotations on any format
  • Multi-page lazy loading for large documents
• Convert PDF & Office formats at 100% accuracy without the need for OCR
• Improved OCR accuracy for all languages including East Asian
• New barcode types: Aztec, MaxiCode & Micro QR
• Structured and unstructured forms recognition and processing with OEM-ready forms applications (checks, passports, driver licenses, invoices)
• PDF and Office format viewing, editing and conversion: convert hundreds of different file types to PDF, DOC/DOCX, RTF, HTML, XPS and more
• Powerful PDF SDK is feature packed and includes page manipulation, optimize PDF, bookmarks and metadata; create PDF/A files, PDF annotations, image extraction and more
• Zero-footprint HTML5/JavaScript UI controls & web services
• Image cleanup and pre-processing

Medical Imaging

• Comprehensive DICOM SDK supporting the latest specifications
• PACS client and server components
• Optional third-party cloud storage integration in the DICOM Storage Server
• New HL7 SDK with decoders, listener service and MWL integration
• Redesigned, highly customizable, cloud-enabled HTML5 / JavaScript zero-footprint medical viewer
• Rich Client Medical Web Viewer (IE only)
• Medical image processing
• Medical annotations and collaboration tools
• 3D volume construction and advanced visualization
• Specialized 8-16 bit grayscale image display
• OEM-ready applications with source code

Multimedia

• H.265 with 4K and 8K ultra-high-definition
• Capture, convert, stream and play audio and video
• Hundreds of formats and codecs for DirectShow and Media Foundation
  • MPEG-2 Transport Stream, H.264, MPEG-4 & more
• KLV metadata
• UAV and UAS
• Audio and video processing filters and transforms including overlays and motion detection
• DICOM reading and writing

Imaging

• Hundreds of file and image formats for loading, saving and compression
• Thousands of image processing algorithms
• New Image Viewer control for all platforms
• Scan with TWAIN from the web

More to come in the following weeks! Sign up for our newsletter to get all the latest information regarding LEADTOOLS Version 19 sent directly to your inbox.