The Big Picture

LARGE-FORMAT PRINTERS AND SCANNERS ARE KEY TOOLS FOR MEETING GEOSPATIAL USERS’ NEEDS FOR PRECISE AND ACCURATE IMAGING.

The industry uses large-format printers to produce quality and accurate color maps, charts and high-resolution imagery from satellites and aircraft. Scanners are used for electronically capturing maps and charts, and map overlay for geographical analysis.

High-color fidelity is important when scanning difficult GIS maps containing light or dark shades of color. Users may be working with old or fragile documents or maps that have folds or imperfections, so it’s also important to use scanning technology that can scan and capture images properly. 3-D printers, meanwhile, enable customers to produce quality terrain, urban and subsurface maps quickly. When used to print GIS data, they provide a color terrain map, not just a 2-D image.

One company that is heavily involved in this field is HP, which offers a broad portfolio of large-format color printing technologies and solutions. There are a number of HP solutions available to meet the needs of professionals working in the geospatial industry.

“These solutions should be selected based on the size of the work group and the volume of printing that needs to be fulfilled as well as the type of printing applications that will be produced,” said Eric DuPaul, U.S. federal government Designjet specialist, HP Imaging and Printing Division.

HP Designjet printers are being used by the geospatial community to produce high-quality, highly accurate color maps, plats, charts and high-resolution imagery from satellites and aircraft. “With the federal government moving to a ‘distribute and print as needed’ model from a ‘print and distribute’ model, HP Designjet printers are helping to cut costs and reduce waste with quick print-on-demand capabilities,” DuPaul said.

With built-in technology designed to allow geospatial users to easily print from applications such as ESRI ArcMap and Adobe PDF, HP Designjet printers do not require special modifications to meet the needs of the geospatial community. Such features as an easy-to-use print driver, built-in job management tools, user-changeable supplies and HP’s Advanced Profiling Solution ensure a great customer experience right out of the box, he said.

After working with the federal geospatial community for more than a decade, HP has carefully considered this customer group’s needs when designing its printers. For example, all HP Designjet printers that include hard drives support HP Secure Disk Erase and Secure Sanitized Erase, as required under the Department of Defense’s 5220-22.M specification.

Secure Disk Erase and Secure Sanitized Erase allow the erasing of information from the hard drive in a secure mode, which makes it impossible to have this information recovered. HP has also worked with customers to develop special driver and job submission routines that create an easier user experience.

MEDIA VERSATILITY

Products that are currently being used in the government geospatial market include the HP Designjet 110plus nr printer and the HP Designjet 130 nr printer. These printers are solutions for individual users who require media versatility and prints that range from letter size up to 24 inches by 36 inches, with rich, vibrant colors.

Several government customers utilize these two platforms in their mobile units, allowing users to operate in the distribute-and-print environment versus the printand- distribute environment, DuPaul said.

The HP Designjet T610 printer is good for individuals and small work groups that require sharp line accuracy and excellent color quality as well as the ability to print on various media, ranging in size from A to E and greater. The HP Designjet T610 is currently in use with government customers, who demand high-quality output in a priceconscious environment.

“Working in conjunction with case maker Deployable Systems, we have been able to create mobile solutions that allow these machines to be packed and moved with minimum setup and tear-down time,” DuPaul said. Another solution, the HP Designjet T1100 printer, is aimed at medium-sized work groups that need to print high-quality maps, renderings and presentations with excellent line quality. This printer series includes 24-inch and 44-inch models and allows several users to print and process at the same time for increased map production. Numerous agencies have chosen this printer series as a standard in their GIS environments.

The HP Designjet 4000 and 4500 printers, which are HP’s flagship color production large-format printers, are capable of producing two D-sized line drawings in less than one minute. Designed for large work groups, the HP Designjet 4500 is a dual-roll system that, when grouped with the HP Designjet 4500 stacker, allows users to print large amounts of maps unattended.

The HP Designjet Z6100 printer series is available for large work groups requiring high-resolution color maps, mockups and displays that can be printed for outdoor use on materials such as Tyvek and vinyl, DuPaul explained. Designed to handle peak workloads, this printer is exceptionally fast, with print speeds of up to 1,134 square feet per hour, or 35 seconds per D-sized page. In addition to speed, the HP Designjet Z6100 features outstanding print quality, media versatility and advanced color accuracy.

PRINTING COMPLEX FILES

Océ offers large-format printers for GIS applications— the TCS500 inkjet print/copy/ scan system, TCS300 inkjet color printer and ColorWave 600 printer, as well as the TC4 and CS4300 series scanners for scanning of monochrome and color documents.

The primary purpose for the geospatial industry is to render high-quality prints from very complex and detailed images, said Bob Honn, director of product marketing for the Wide Format Printing Systems division of Océ North America. GIS images and files are so large and complex that printing them can often take an extraordinary amount of time. “Océ devices, with their powerful controllers, can not only quickly process the files for printing, but while this is happening, allow other users to print on the system,” Honn said.

Productivity is often limited because traditional systems only have one roll to print to. Océ devices can be loaded with up to six rolls of media depending on the device, again increasing productivity by enabling users to print onto the right type and size of media and change rolls without needing to take the system offline.

Océ devices have built-in intelligence and back-channel communication to the user, letting them plan and prioritize their printing around the available time of the printer. “The Océ TCS500 provides a flexible technology growth path with the addition of large-format color copying and scanning capabilities as the workflow requires, protecting the initial investment and enhancing options as needs change,” Honn said.

New technology in the ColorWave 600 printer enables color printing on economical, uncoated plain or recycled paper, and Tyvek for instantly dry, water-fast prints. It also prints with no ozone, odor or fine powder emissions, via a TonerPearls color toner. For scanning applications, users may be working with old or fragile documents or maps that have folds or other imperfections. “It’s important in such cases to use the proper scanning technology that can scan and capture the parts of the image that don’t lay flat on the glass plate with a sufficiently large depth of field,” said Honn. “It’s also helpful when users can operate the scanner without spending extensive time creating the proper settings for each job.”

Customizable job templates for scan-tofile operations can significantly help streamline workflow.

The Power Logic controller, the brains behind the TCS300 and TCS500, comes standard with 1 GB of memory and an 80 GB hard drive, with 40 GB for set processing and 40 GB for spooling, thus essentially taking the load off the application and the network. In the ColorWave 600 printer, the PowerM controller and optional PowerM Plus controller offer 1 GB or 2 GB of memory respectively, and an 80 GB hard drive or dual 160 GB plus 320 GB hard disk capacity. As a result, the Océ systems can process complex color files quickly and reliably. As a printeronly configuration, files are processed and printed simultaneously. When scanning is required, files are processing, printing, copying and scanning all at once, creating valuable efficiencies.

The company’s TCS printers provide up to three online rolls of media, while the ColorWave 600 printer offers up to six rolls of online media. Automatic roll switching selects the proper media based on the type of media loaded. Mid- to high-volume users may load multiple rolls of the same media to allow for longer runs and continuous production. The TCS printers also offer an optional high-volume stacker for unattended or overnight production. With these printers, users can easily change media and ink tanks while the system is printing without ever having to stop production.

With Print Assistant (ColorWave 600 printer), users no longer have to think about what print setting will give the best quality result for their file in the fastest time. The system makes this decision, choosing between the available print settings based on the file content.

GIS operators must be able to manage the print queue to meet various users’ requirements and to ensure that priority print requests are completed first. Both the Océ controllers, coupled with Océ queue management software, allow a GIS operator to view the print queue to check the status of a job, view the number of sets and pages, reprint processed jobs, and check the ink levels and media type/size currently loaded in the printer. With password protection, select users can change settings of a printed job or manage jobs, such as placing jobs on hold and prioritizing rush jobs for urgent needs.

3-D PRINTERS

Z Corp.’s 3-D printers enable customers to output high-quality terrain, urban and subsurface maps in hours at very low cost. The technology improves the way clients use GIS data to communicate and enables them to analyze critical elements with quick, inexpensive and easily reproducible 3-D models.

“Sometimes we get grouped in with 2-D printer manufacturers. We make 3-D printers, not 2-D printers,” said Scott Harmon, vice president of business development. “So if you use them to print GIS data you get a color terrain map, not just a 2-D image.” The company’s large format printer has a build volume of 10 inches by 15 inches in the x-y matrix and 8 inches in the z direction.

They have been used in an array of different GIS applications. “It was used for security planning in the 2005 presidential inauguration, and to monitor water levels, flooding and evacuation routes after Hurricane Katrina,” said Harmon. “It is routinely used by large construction firms for site planning and visualization.”

Harmon finds that 3-D prints are effective at communicating information, especially to nonexperts. “A GIS professional can look at a 2-D satellite image and understand clearly what’s going on. But there are lots of people in the world who aren’t GIS pros who could use a little extra help visualizing the lay of the land,” he said.

PRECISION SCANNING

As for scanning needs, the new Contex HD scanners— especially the 36-inch and 42-inch models—would be a good recommendation for work in the GIS environment, suggested Dan Bennett, director of service operations for North and South America at Contex.

Contex has developed a technology called Accuracy Lens Enhancement (ALE), which is an electronic correction of spherical errors in CCD-based camera systems. ALE corrects the anomaly that the pixels looking through the outer edges of the camera lens tend to be more elliptical than those pixels looking through the center of the camera lens.

“Geospatial imaging is a very precise environment that requires high accuracy,” said Bennett. “The ALE technology maintains high accuracy when measuring any two points across the image. The results of ALE provide precise geometric accuracy of 0.1 percent or better.”

Contex scanners are used for scanning a variety of maps and geospatial charts. “Because of the high-precision scanning and resulting high geometric accuracy, our scans can be used for map overlay, where scanned maps containing varying information of a certain geographical area are sometimes layered [one map upon another] for geographical analysis,” said Bennett. “In order for this geographical analysis to be valid, reference points from each map must be positioned and registered in a precise manner. Therefore, scanning accuracy is a critical component in this process.”

Contex products have been used in these environments and processes for years and have been recommended for use by GIS industry committees and consultants. “Our products have been proven to be the best solution when wide-format scanning is required,” said Bennett. “Our scanners have been developed over the years from market feedback, experienced engineering development using high-quality parts and state-of-the-art manufacturing processes.”

The high color fidelity of Contex’s 48-bit CCDs provide accurate color reproduction when scanning difficult GIS maps containing very light or dark shades of color. “Many GIS maps contain very fine lines and other details with slight color variations. The 48-bit CCD provides ample means to differentiate between these small but sometimes very important details,” Bennett said. ♦

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