Adjusting Image Tones to Improve OCR Results

Posted on January 9, 2019 by Nick Villalobos

Tonal range is an important attribute of an image, especially photographs, when trying to improve OCR results. Tonal range is the range of tones between the lightest and darkest areas of an image and is also known as contrast. An image with a wide range has both very dark (black) and very light (white) elements. An image with a narrow range is more limited in its tonal scope, which is usually in the mid-ranges (varying shades of grays).

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LEADTOOLS Extends Encoder Support for MP4, MKV, and RTSP

Posted on December 5, 2018 by Greg

Today, LEADTOOLS released an update to its Multimedia SDKs that enhances support for several formats and streaming capabilities. These improvements are all geared towards extending our support for various technologies as they emerge on the market, and in speeding up the overall process of streaming audio and video data to clients.

  • Added support for h.265 and h.264 hardware encoders to MP4 and MKV outputs
  • Added support for MP3 audio to MP4 and MKV outputs
  • Added support for MPEG-2 audio encoder to MKV output
  • Improved capture device support
  • Added the ability to use Microsoft RTSP media source using windows media extensions, with implementation of network source authentication interfaces

This update is freely available to any existing LEADTOOLS Version 20 customers and is included in the latest Multimedia SDK download.

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Check out how Visual Studio Extensions, DevIntersection, #MSFTConnect();, and #CodeParty will rock your world

Posted on November 20, 2018 by Katie

There are still over two million desktop application developers—i.e., currently writing or maintaining Windows desktop apps, whether written in C++ or .NET. Regardless of your targeted platform and environment, be it Winforms and C#, or WPF or UWP, Visual Studio is the IDE of choice. VS Code is gaining popularity, and our devs use it for some projects, but VS is the bread and butter around here.

One the thing that makes VS2017 such an amazing IDE is its extensibility, allowing a vast ecosystem of add-ins to flourish. You can find them in the Visual Studio Marketplace, or by searching from inside VS: Just go to Tools -> Extensions and Updates… and select the “Online” option:

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LEAD Technologies Joins TWAIN Working Group as an Associate Member

Posted on November 6, 2018 by Greg
Twain Associate

LEAD Technologies has joined the TWAIN Working Group as an Associate Member. For many years, LEAD has included imaging toolkits that follow the TWAIN standards and this membership helps ensure an even higher level of support and a commitment to future development. More specifically, LEAD’s membership in the TWAIN Working Group paves the way for early development access to the new TWAIN Direct standard, enabling imaging workflow applications for the desktop, mobile, or in the cloud.

To learn more, read the full press release.

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Correct Photos of Documents – Two- and Three-dimensional Skew

Posted on October 15, 2018 by Gabriel Smith

As I mentioned in my previous post, Correct Photos of Documents – Ambient Lighting, most images of documents suffer from skew. There are two types of skew: two-dimensional and three-dimensional.

Text is typically parallel to the top and bottom of the paper. Simply put, two-dimensional skew is the angle of the text when compared to the top or bottom edge of the image. This type of skewing can occur in photos of documents as well as document images produced by a scanner. While it is relatively easy to correct with a simple rotate, determining the angle of rotation can be tricky. Fortunately, LEADTOOLS includes a DeskewCommand class that can determine the angle of skew.

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Posted in Document Imaging | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

New ConvertBarcodeSplit Web API Method for LEADTOOLS Cloud Services

Posted on October 15, 2018 by Greg

Since releasing LEADTOOLS Cloud Services only a few months ago, we have seen a lot of usage from customers as well as some feedback. It’s a product we look forward to supporting and improving by making additional LEADTOOLS imaging functionality available in an easy-to-consume Web API. Today marks the first update to LEADTOOLS Cloud Services and are happy to announce a new method endpoint for the service: ConvertBarcodeSplit.

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Posted in Barcode | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Correct Photos of Documents – Ambient Lighting

Posted on October 10, 2018 by Gabriel Smith

In my previous post, “Solution to 4 Common First-world Problems – Convert and Merge to PDF,” I implemented a solution to convert images of documents to text-searchable PDF files. The source images were produced from a document scanner and the camera on my phone. Since that post, I have received some questions on how to improve the human readability of the PDFs that were originally camera images.

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Posted in Document Imaging | Tagged | 3 Comments