ISIS
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- This article is about the scanning technology. For other meanings see Isis (disambiguation).
ISIS (Image and Scanner Interface Specification) is an industry standard interface for image scanning technologies. It was developed by Pixel Translations in 1990, and they retain control over development and licensing.
ISIS can be considered as a "big brother" to the TWAIN standard, which tends to be used on small scanner hardware for home use.
ISIS compatible scanners typically use a SCSI-2 interface, while TWAIN hardware now mostly uses USB.
ISIS has a wider feature set than TWAIN, can handle greater speeds, and also handles some aspects of image display and manipulation for the client application.
Most major scanner manufacturers, including Kodak, Canon, Hewlett-Packard, and Fujitsu use the ISIS interface for their departmental and high-capacity scanner hardware.
The ISIS architecture is a mutable architecture based on modules—software components that perform specific imaging functions (e.g., image acquisition, file conversion, data extraction and file read/write commands). ISIS architecture allows for new modules to be added without making system-wide changes: you simply add what you need where it’s needed.
ISIS modules interact with each other through a system of tags (data storage areas) and choices (value sets). A combination of two or more ISIS modules put together to perform a specific imaging function is called an ISIS pipe. ISIS pipes can be constructed according to each developers specific imaging needs.
First and foremost in the benefits ISIS delivers to developers is compatibility: ISIS-compatible drivers are available for more than 250 scanner models, most of them certified by Pixel Translations to be compatible with any properly written ISIS application. ISIS' compatibility is further evidenced by its being the basis for the AIIM (The Association for Information and Image Management) MS61 standard since 1996, which is in the public domain.
External links
- Pixel Translations (http://www.pixtran.com/index.asp)