Flatbed scanners are a thing of the past with the piQx XCANEX Ultra Compact Personal Scanstation!
No more tedious scanning procedures! The XCANEX Scanstation allows you to scan documents FACING UP. Simply place the document you wish to scan under the camera and it does the rest. The camera can even be used as a web camera, and for video streaming and recording.
The XCANEX is also foldable, small sized and lightweight, which makes it perfect for people constantly on the go.
Don’t look away yet; it even removes any visible fingers in your image! Seriously, if that isn’t impressive, we don’t know what is.
SRP: S$ 369
COMEX deal: S$ 299
Key Features:
8 Megapixel HD CMOS sensor
3264 x 2448 Active Pixel Count
300DPI Scan Resolution
16x Digital Zoom function
USB Powered
Auto Scan Initiation/Page Detection/Orientation
Auto Crop/Rotation/Perspective Correction
Background Whitening/Image Noise Reduction
http://www.piqximaging.com/xcanex
From Xcanex owners
“The Xcanex has now arrived and I found it easy to set up and use. The videos were of considerable help and I congratulate you on them. I cannot think of any other equipment that had such extensive and useful video instructions. It works very well and does exactly what it says on the box! I hope it sells well. It deserves to.” D. Young London “The Xcanex is a quality product. The images produced are sharp & clear. The video tutorials & manual are excellent. The ability of the software to automatically remove fingers from images is simply amazing. To my knowledge this option is currently only available in a machine that costs around $10,000. The included Abbyy FineReader OCR program works great. I will highly recommend this product to others.” Mary J. Toronto |
Imagine the Unimaginable
Well-established libraries and archives are often equipped with expensive, huge and sophisticated scan stations enabling easy scanning of books or magazines. Unlike copiers or flatbed scanners, pages are scanned facing up which facilitates easy flipping, and pages are automatically detected and cropped. Now, imagine one such machine that magically fits snugly into your laptop bag and could be used anywhere. It is affordable - anybody could own one. Imagine adding a powerful scan station to your collection of tools but this one doesn’t eat up any of your desk or storage space. It scans not just your books but any document you dump at it. Further imagine that scan initiates automatically once it sees a new document or when a page is flipped, as if it is alive. Perfectly rotated, cropped and oriented scans appear without you doing anything. All those wild imaginations took place years ago. It is now ready and we call it the Xcanex.
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Just Drop It – A New Way to Scan
“No I don’t scan. But with this, I will.”- Those were the words from a member of an audience who witnessed a live demonstration of the Xcanex during its prototype showcase at CeBIT 2012. So what is it that’s so burdensome about scanning documents? Prep work (removing staplers, setting up the scanner, separating documents) and the scanning action are definitely contributing factors. But cumbersome post processing could be the real killer. Our concept of “Just Drop It” doesn’t just imply the scanning action but also encompasses what’s left to be done after capture, which is essentially - nothing. Place the document in front of you, and that’s about it. Scan initiates automatically and the page is identified, perspective corrected, de-skewed, cropped, enhanced, orientated and with finger images removed – all done by Xcanex’s sophisticated algorithms*. You can even choose to let files be automatically saved as JPEG or searchable PDF to the folder of your choice (even to a cloud based folder like Dropbox) so that no manual file saving is required.
*Performance of some automated features may vary with scanning conditions such as document content and finger positioning
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Cameras are Not Scanners..
No ordinary camera (or document camera for that matter) is able to produce images of documents close to the quality of real scans. Taking photos of commonly found folded or uneven documents would turn out distorted with a crumpled look. Ambient light would cause undesired coloration and shadows. Images of glossy documents would have bright patches due to reflections either from ceiling lights or flashlight. Last but not least, perspective error – take a picture of a slanted page (e.g. the first page of a thick book) and the result shows not a rectangular page but a distorted trapezoid. These crucial factors differentiate real scanners from cameras.
..Until Innovation is Put to Work
Fingers actually do a great job at flattening paper - just swipe across the page and let them rest at the edges. Xcanex then captures automatically and fingers disappear from the resultant scan. Never before a letter fresh from an envelope can so easily be captured by a camera. No worries about colors and shadows from ambient lighting as Xcanex has the technology to remove almost all its disturbing effects to produce consistently high quality scans. In fact, lighting disturbances are so significantly reduced that scanned contents on highly reflective glossy pages are clearly legible even under the presence of strong ceiling lights. Moreover unlike flash cameras, Xcanex’s unique illumination doesn’t cast a bright spot on captured images of glossy materials. Perspective distortion gets corrected automatically – so even if you’re scanning a slanted book page, it will turn out as if it’s not. In the presence of innovation, everything is like magic.
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Why make it Laptop Mountable?
If you use a laptop for daily tasks or one who couldn’t leave your laptop behind wherever you go, this feature is designed for you. During its development, a straightforward option was to just create Xcanex to be a simple camera on a stand but that would mean a heavy stand, otherwise it would topple. We thought hard : there must be some way to make it lighter, and then voilà! - by making use of the laptop’s lid as substitute for a stand, not only weight is reduced to just 7 ounces (200 grams) but you effectively have a scan station integrated into the laptop! Furthermore there’s no reason to keep and store Xcanex after use – just leave it in its ready-to-scan position as it won’t interfere with usual laptop usage and it doesn’t take up any desk space. That means there’s a scan station right in front of you whenever needed. For desktop users, Xcanex could alternatively be attached to a uniquely designed stand provided. It greatly reduces bulk with its foldable and streamlined design compared to conventional stands with huge and wide bases, and that still makes it more portable than most other scanners.* Refer to system requirements to ensure your laptop is suitable for this feature
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A Matter of Resolution
Without a doubt, linear sensors in flatbed scanners produce higher resolutions than area sensors in cameras. However the 600 DPI found in conventional scanners are almost never used by knowledgeable users. Not only 600 DPI files are humongous and extremely slow to scan, using half of that resolving power is more than enough to read most documents. Xcanex could have been designed with a higher resolution but by doing that would render it several times pricier and bulkier - this would defeat our purpose of wanting to create an affordable and portable solution. With its 8-megapixel image sensor, Xcanex is able to capture text characters with width or height down to 1mm with full legibility. To be sure that Xcanex suits your application, check out real scan samples here.
If your priorities are practical usability, portability and affordability, Xcanex is the answer.
So What is Xcanex?Is it a book scanner that doesn’t take up storage and additional space ideal for use at home? Or is it a portable book scanner that’s perfect for your research work? Is it a portable document scanner that’s always with you wherever you travel? Or is it a business card scanner that allows you to “just drop it”? Perhaps it’s a convenient photo scanner for quick uploading of your favorite photographs to the web? No matter what Xcanex is perceived to be, it is definitely a powerful scan station like no other.
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Software Features
Scan
Video
General
* Performance of some automated features may vary with scanning conditions such as document content and finger positioning
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System Requirements [Important!]
Recommended PC specification
Minimum PC specification*
*Note: When driven by a system with minimum specifications, processing time may rise up to 30 seconds per scan
Requirements for laptop attachment
1) Attachment to laptop is supported only for laptops with depths in between 8.2 to 11 inches
2) Requires at least a 1 x 1.5 inch clear space at the right-hand rear side of the laptop’s base for pasting of a hook tape (velcro).
For a clearer illustration of these requirements, refer to the “Mechanical Installation & Basic Adjustments” tutorial video here
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Product Specifications
Hardware Specifications
Software Specifications
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