Scan-Optics LLC, founded in 1968, is an
enterprise content management
Enterprise content management (ECM) extends the concept of content management by adding a timeline for each content item and, possibly, enforcing processes for its creation, approval and distribution. Systems using ECM generally provide a secure ...
services company and
optical character recognition
Optical character recognition or optical character reader (OCR) is the electronic or mechanical conversion of images of typed, handwritten or printed text into machine-encoded text, whether from a scanned document, a photo of a document, a scen ...
(OCR) and
image scanner
An image scanner—often abbreviated to just scanner—is a device that optically scans images, printed text, handwriting or an object and converts it to a digital image. Commonly used in offices are variations of the desktop ''flatbed scanner'' ...
manufacturer headquartered in
Manchester, Connecticut
Manchester is a town in Hartford County, Connecticut, United States. As of the 2020 census, the town had a total population of 59,713. The urban center of the town is the Manchester census-designated place, with a population of 36,379 at the 202 ...
.
Scan-Optics'
records management
Records management, also known as records and information management, is an organizational function devoted to the information management, management of information in an organization throughout its records life-cycle, life cycle, from the time of ...
, information,
data remanence, data
backup
In information technology, a backup, or data backup is a copy of computer data taken and stored elsewhere so that it may be used to restore the original after a data loss event. The verb form, referring to the process of doing so, is "back up", w ...
and
data recovery services are supplied to government and business customers throughout North America and Europe, while its industrial high-speed
digital imaging and OCR SO-series scanners are being used worldwide.
History and technology
Scan-Optics was founded in 1968 by four Connecticut men with financial backing from
The Travelers Companies. Its goal of developing the brand-new and barely functioning
optical character recognition
Optical character recognition or optical character reader (OCR) is the electronic or mechanical conversion of images of typed, handwritten or printed text into machine-encoded text, whether from a scanned document, a photo of a document, a scen ...
(OCR) technology. Scan-Optics was one of the technology groups enabling the transition from paper to digital.
Scan-Optics developed the
image dissector tube and made it commercially available, pioneered an
alphanumeric handwriting recognition system, and introduced key data entry integrated with optical character recognition via a direct computer-to-computer link to accomplish image reject repair. In a 1997 study
Doculabs classified Scan-Optics'
intelligent character recognition (ICR) as "a significant improvement over standard ICR technology" - in tests using 3,400 forms completed from a national sample of the general population, only Scan-Optics' ICR technology yielded a field read rate accuracy of approximately 90%.
In recent years, Scan-Optics' developments included acoustic double page detection, context edit, the integration of
magnetic ink character recognition (MICR) and
barcode reading into the recognition system and the introduction of grayscale capability in OCR.
References
Further reading
{{refbegin
Computerworld Article "OCR Proves Logical Choice for Tallying Proxies", page 21, Aug 31, 1981Hartford Courant News Profile of Scan-Optics, February 09, 1998ACBJ Business Journals article "Scan Optics Chooses Brainware Distiller to Help Process Millions of Pages Daily", March 16, 2010ISM news article "Scan-Optics Offers 200 Page Per Minute Production Image Scanner", May 07, 2002BSM article "Scan-Optics Ranks In Connecticut's 25 Best Performing Public Companies", June 21, 2004EMC article "Digital Legal Standardizes On Scan-Optics For High-Volume Scanning Solution", January 19, 2006
Storage companies
Electronics companies of the United States
Companies based in Manchester, Connecticut
Electronics companies established in 1968
Computer storage companies
Cloud storage
1968 establishments in Connecticut