This latest remaster of the LEADTOOLS family of imaging toolkits is packed with more updates and new features. This release offers new AJAX-enabled controls for developing interactive web applications, support for VB6 developers who want to take advantage of the LEADTOOLS V15 .NET Class Library, support for JPEG 2000 Part 2, improved documentation, new tutorials and much more.

New Features

• AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML)Enabled Image Controls The new LEADTOOLS Raster Tiled Image Viewer and Web Thumbnail Viewer (image list) controls enable you to add fast, interactive image viewing to your AJAX web applications. Support also includes a Pan Viewer control. Ships with source code for complete document and color image processing demo applications. Try them online at:

  • Document Cleaning Ajax Demo (C#)
  • Image Processing Ajax Demo (C#)
• .NET 3.0 - LEADTOOLS now supports the .NET 3.0 Framework. A new conversion class allows developers to convert the LEAD RasterImage class to and from the .NET 3.0 BitmapSource class. Your WPF-based applications can now leverage the power of LEADTOOLS image processing and file input / output functionality.
• LEADTOOLS now supports development for x64 (64-bit CPU support) platforms as well as x86 (32-bit CPU support)
• LEADTOOLS now supports JPX (JPEG 2000 part 2)- especially useful for document, medical, and satelite imagery archiving systems. All LEADTOOLS Raster Pro, Document Imaging, and Medical Imaging toolkits can read/parse JPX files. LEADTOOLS Document and Medical Imaging toolkits can also write/update JPX files.
• This release adds XPS (XML Paper Specification) file support, a new electronic document format supported natively by Office 2007 and Windows VISTA. For more information on XPS, refer to http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/xps/default.mspx.
• A new DeskewCheckCommand class, designed specifically to aid automation of bank check scanning, recognition and archiving. Its powerful, reliable automatic deskew features use a proprietary algorithm to detect bank check image orientation, and within milliseconds rotate it to horizontal or vertical.

• Support for the following LEADTOOLS image file formats has been enhanced to improve performance:

  Raster

  • PSD (Photoshop Format): Adds support for saving Unicode layer names, and enhances reading layers, masks, and alpha channels.
• LEADTOOLS now supports using the .NET database engine to store and retrieve images to/from any database supported by .NET.
• Up to 200 percent increase in performance over version 14.5
• The .NET Viewer and ImageList have been enhanced with multi-select with mouse and rubberband select. Annotations now support a pan window and magnifying glass.
• LEADTOOLS now supports reading TIFF images with ZIP compression.
• LEADTOOLS now supports COM Wrapper for .NET - VB6 and COM developers can now use LEADTOOLS V15. The new COM interoperability classes allow you to incorporate full LEADTOOLS .NET platform functionality into your COM applications. Additional demos and tutorials show how to use the COM Wrapper in VB 6.0.
• LEADTOOLS now ships with many IntelliSense Code Snippets for C# and VB.NET.
• LEADTOOLS now ships with new .NET tutorials, including demonstrations of COM interoperability, how to use the registration marks demo, how to scan and create a searchable PDF file, and how to load and save images using databases without data binding.
• LEADTOOLS has added signed image support to 50 functions. Over half of all LEADTOOLS image functions now support both signed and unsigned images.
• Leadtools.Barcode - Support for reading and writing barcodes
• Leadtools.Dicom and Leadtools.Dicom.Annotations - Classes for working with DICOM data sets and DICOM communications
• Leadtools.Jpeg2000 - Classes that allow you to read, write and manipulate JPEG 2000 images.
• Leadtools.MedicalViewer - Support for displaying graphics from a bitmap, metafile, icon, JPEG, GIF or PNG (or any other image file format supported by Leadtools) file. It provides support for displaying one or more images and for the real-time manipulation of one or more images.
• Leadtools.Web – Contains classes for implementing imaging applications in ASP.NET
• Leadtools.ScreenCapture – Contains classes for capturing images from screen elements, including windows, client areas, objects, menus, the desktop, or the entire screen
• Leadtools.SpecialEffects – Contains classes for painting images with effects and transitions. Contains classes for drawing 3D shapes and text
• Leadtools.Windows.Media – Contains classes that add support for the Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) framework introduced in Microsoft .NET 3.0. These classes let you convert a LEADTOOLS image (Leadtools.RasterImage) to and from a WPF image (System.Windows.Media.ImageSource).
• New file filters:
  • Leadtools.Codecs.Djv.dll – DjVu format support
  • Leadtools.Codecs.Fpx.dll – FlashPix format support
  • Leadtools.Codecs.Mng.dll – Multiple Network Graphics (MNG) format support
  • Leadtools.Codecs.Pct.dll – Macintosh Pict format support
  • Leadtools.Codecs.Sid.dll – Mr. SID format support
  • Leadtools.Codecs.Tfx.dll – TIFF-FX format support
  • Leadtools.Codecs.Wmz.dll – Compressed Windows Metafile format support

Changes Made to Existing Class Libraries

• For changes to support COM Interoperability, refer to Programming With LEADTOOLS COM Interoperability Functions
• Leadtools Assembly Changes from Version 14.5 to Version 15
• Leadtools.Codecs Assembly Changes from Version 14.5 to Version 15
• Leadtools.WinForms Assembly Changes from Version 14.5 to Version 15
• Leadtools.Annotations Assembly Changes from Version 14.5 to Version 15
• Leadtools.Twain Assembly Changes from Version 14.5 to Version 15.
• Leadtools.Document Assembly Changes from Version 14.5 to Version 15
• Leadtools.ColorConversion assembly/namespace has been completely re-designed
• Leadtools.Mrc Assembly Changes from Version 14.5 to Version 15
• Leadtools.WinForms.CommonDialogs.Color Assembly Changes from Version 14.5 to Version 15
• Leadtools.WinForms.CommonDialogs.File Assembly Changes from Version 14.5 to Version 15
• Leadtools.ImageOptimization Assembly Changes from Version 14.5 to Version 15
• The assemblies/namespaces Leadtools.ImageProcessing.Color and Leadtools.ImageProcessing.Effects have been rearranged into the following new assemblies/namespaces:
  • Leadtools.ImageProcessing.Color - Contains classes for color image processing routines
  • Leadtools.ImageProcessing.Core - Contains classes for transformations, medical and document image processing routines
  • Leadtools.ImageProcessing.Effects - Contains classes for image effects, such as edge detection, average, emboss, etc
  • Leadtools.ImageProcessing.SpecialEffects - Contains classes for artistic effects image processing routine
  • Leadtools.ImageProcessing.Utilities.dll - Contains internal classes used by the other image processing dlls

Removed Assemblies

Assembly	Notes
Leadtools.Kernel	Merged into the Leadtools assembly
Leadtools.Kernel.Codecs	Merged into the Leadtools.Codecs assembly
Leadtools.Kernel.Codecs.Interfaces	Merged into the Leadtools.Codecs assembly
Leadtools.Ocr	Renamed into Leadtools.Document
Leadtools.Kernel.Ocr	Merged into Leadtools.Document