We scan and convert aperture cards into high-quality digital images. Whether your aperture cards contain engineering drawings, construction plans, building plans, architectural renderings, manufacturing designs, technical drawings, schematics, diagrams or other documents, we can convert and digitize them all. Our sophisticated equipment can read Hollerith data (code in the form of punched holes that is used for indexing) off your aperture cards and provide back valuable information about your documents. In the absence of Hollerith data, we are able to identify printed or handwritten information on the cards and index them manually.

You can easily preserve your valuable documents, improve access, retrieval and readability, and save significant amount of time and money simply by converting your aperture cards to digital format. With over 30 years of experience in scanning, indexing and archiving massive volumes of documents, we know everything there is to know about digital conversion of aperture cards. Our conversion services are delivered through our ScanFactory division by qualified, security-cleared personnel that are dedicated to quality aperture card scanning.

Superior Equipment & Technology

We use highly sophisticated aperture card scanners that provide exceptional image quality and accurate index data even from cards that are in poor condition or low contrast. The latest digital imaging technology can create significantly enhanced, clean digital images at full resolution (quality is often much better than the original). Our scanners are also capable of automatically extracting Hollerith data (punch data) and automtically indexing aperture card scans. In addition, we use our own proprietary technology to control, streamline and automate all our scanning operations, from A to Z – ScanFactory Resource Planning (SRP). It was developed entirely in-house by our expert personnel. Its main purpose is to reduce human intervention to an absolute minimum and remove the risk of human error. This highly sophisticated, one-of-a-kind technology offers complete traceability and provides full real-time reporting functionality.

Customer Portal

The Customer Portal allows you to search for and consult the status of aperture cards processed by ScanFactory at any point in time (e.g. In Transport, in Scanning, etc.). The Portal also makes it possible to make requests for on-demand or urgent scanning or physical delivery of your aperture cards, and view full history of such requests. All information and metadata about your aperture cards, including their exact physical location, are stored in the SRP database and can be retrieved on-demand.

Aperture Card Scanning & Conversion Process

A set of clearly defined procedures governs every single step of our scanning / conversion process: Pick-up of your aperture cards, Transport & Intake at our facilities, Preparation, Scanning, Indexing, Quality Control, Metadata & Image Delivery. Our experienced consultants will work with your staff to determine the special requirements of your project. All of our procedures are designed to maintain a high degree of quality and accuracy to guarantee your satisfaction.

Our ScanFactory operators are highly trained professionals equipped to handle aperture cards with care.

A typical conversion project involves the following steps:

• One of our consultants meets with your staff to determine your project requirements
• A secure and sealed iGuana vehicle comes and picks up your aperture cards and delivers them to our conversion facility
• Our expert ScanFactory operators prepare, scan and index your aperture cards to your specifications
• Digital images and metadata are delivered to you securely via VPN or on an encrypted drive in your preferred format

Quality Control & Image Enhancement

Our operators spend the majority of their time on quality control and tweaking images before they are output (not after), so there are no mistakes to correct in the final images. Typically, aperture cards contain large format (wide format) documents such as engineering drawings. However, in some cases, instead of one large image, the aperture cards might contain two, four or more separate images. We have developed methods to efficiently separate multiple images and ensure that they are correctly identified on the card. We audit the quality of separate images and, if corrections are needed, they are done immediately. Final quality control confirms that all the above steps have been correctly implemented. In addition, our SRP system has built-in quality control features (as do all scanners used at ScanFactory). Our Quality Supervisor is automatically notified by the SRP of any quality issues.

In our experience it is not unusual that aperture cards are filmed in a variety of different ways. Some aperture cards are inside out, upside down, positive or inverted. We can address all these issues. We perform a number of automated and manual image enhancement functions, such as manual or automatic image rotation, white balancing, cropping, deskewing, etc. Importantly, the SRP Image Enhancement module utilizes a 16-core server dedicated exclusively to post-scan image processing and performs a series of complex algorithmic image enhancement tasks.

Last but not least, our employees are trained to apply ISO 9001 Quality Management principles in all their work.

Indexing 

We can index your documents by automatically extracting Hollerith data (punch data) from your aperture cards. If no Hollerith data are available (simply because not all aperture cards contain punched images), we can identify handwritten or printed information on the cards and index the images manually. Additional services include OCR for text searchable PDF files, unitizing images into documents, and preparing images and index information for import into your back-end databases and systems, such as your DMS, or any other applications.

Metadata & Image Delivery

Delivery of images and metadata can be done via a Direct File Transfer method (VPN) or External Storage Device method (e.g. encrypted Hard Disk, USB sticks, etc.). You decide which option suits you best. Delivery is a fully automated process governed entirely by SRP. During scanning, all scanned images and metadata are stored directly in the SRP database. These images and metadata are automatically exported from SRP without any human intervention whatsoever. As a result, you have virtually unlimited flexibility in choosing your preferred image and metadata file formats.