Who's who and what's where in large format scanners - June / July 2008

Canon previews new Colortrac SmartLF Ci 40 at drupa.

Canon have previewed the Colortrac SmartLF Ci 40, a new large format scanner, on their impressive stand (B46, Hall 8a) at drupa, Dusseldorf, the world's largest print show.

Canon have produced a Colortrac SmartLF Ci 40 press release which is short on technical detail. According to Canon, the Colortrac SmartLF Ci 40 large format scanner is an extra-fast, 600 dpi optical resolution technical document scanner with face-up, front loading and front output.

Canon's press release says that this configuration allows for easy operation and space saving. No details of the optical imaging system are available. Scanners4CAD asked Colortrac at drupa for more information but they declined to comment further. All technical data is embargoed at present, they say.

Several clues - "ideal for recreating fine lines and detailed images found in technical drawings" and "ideal for architects, engineering and construction companies" lead us to the conclusion that the Colortrac SmartLF Ci 40 is a CIS scanner with 600 dpi optical resolution and 40" image width.

Scanners4CAD assumes that like other SmartLF scanners the Ci 40 will be available in three models - m (monochrome), c (colour) and e (enhanced colour). No details of price are yet available - this product is still under wraps.

However, one Colortrac staffer expressed the view that the Ci 40 would be "very competitively priced". He would not be drawn on a release date but his inference was sometime later this year. It certainly looks a close-to-finished product. The demo we received was slick with fast scan and regeneration times.

From what little we are allowed to report, the new SmartLF Ci 40 is yet another attractive and practical scanner from Colortrac, one with some unique features. The colour quality and transmission speed were genuinely impressive. Canon say that the Ci 40 is networkable, a first for any Colortrac large format scanning device. Significantly, there is a centre-mounted touch panel. Is this for walk-up scanning and copying across a network?

Colortrac have said that Scanners4CAD will be able to put the SmartLF Ci 40 through its paces on release. We look forward to reviewing it and reporting back here. If you have not already done so, why not sign up for our RSS Feeds? You will be automatically notified of new reviews and info as soon as it is posted.

Contex gets VIP preview of Colortrac Ci 40!

Colortrac drupa staff told Scanners4CAD that two delegations of Contex employees spent time looking at the new Colortrac SmartLF Ci 40.

These included Contex's top brass - Svenn Poulsen, President and CEO, Jørgen Rasmussen, Chief Technology Officer, Niels Appel, VP Sales and Marketing and Brian Honeycutt, Product Manager, Wide Format Solutions.

Among the many reasons why Contex now take Colortrac more seriously is the growing relationship Colortrac enjoy with Canon. Colortrac have worked hard to develop a partnership with Canon whose large format printers now bite big chunks out of HP's once seemingly impregnable CAD printer market.

This relationship is good for both Canon and Colortrac. They are both selling against entrenched market leaders, i.e. HP and Contex. While Contex provide HP with HP-badged OEM large format scanners to sell in HP MFP systems like the HP Designjet T1100, Canon promote Colortrac large format scanners alongside their own brand. They provide Colortrac with both sales and increased brand awareness.

While Contex have long had HP as an OEM distributor, they do not have the same symbiotic relationship with HP that Colortrac enjoys with Canon. HP will always recommend their HP-badged Contex large format scanner first but not necessarily recommend Contex scanners to those who ask "what's the best scanner to use with an HP printer?" Canon Europe and North America, on the other hand, recommend Colortrac scanners.

Anne Sharp, European Marketing Manager, Large Format Solutions, Canon Europe, said "Canon is totally customer focused in our approach to offering products and solutions that fit their needs. Our partnership with Colortrac is delivering a product portfolio that serves users at several levels, and links in well with the print capabilities of our imagePROGRAF range of large format printers. The SmartLF Ci 40 gives us yet another tool to encompass all the needs of a rapidly growing CAD and GIS sector."

The new SmartLF Ci 40 joins a near-complete Colortrac scanner product line-up already launched by Canon, including the SmartLF Cx 40 large format scanner, released by Canon for the AEC, CAD and GIS market, and the SmartLF Gx 42 aimed at Canon's colour graphics and production markets. The SmartLF Ci 40 is a complementary product positioned as a high speed scanning solution for the AEC, CAD & GIS market.

Speaking from the Canon booth at drupa 2008, Peter de Winter Brown, Colortrac sales and marketing director, said "We are delighted to be working in conjunction with Canon to develop this sector of the market. Our association with Canon now goes back to 2000 and our combined knowledge and expertise is enabling us to develop very competitive imaging products for the large format markets."

For further information on Canon Large Format Copying Solutions, see:

Historically, Contex has experienced considerable delays shipping new models of their traditional CCD-based large format scanners. We heard rumours that this was also the case with Contex's latest product, the new CIS-based SD Series.

We asked Niels Appel, Contex's VP Sales and Marketing, for clarification. He replied unhesitatingly. "Contex is proud to announce that the first SD Wide Format Scanner series shipped on time - June 2nd. The production line is fully operational and we ship SD scanners every day to excited users."

Appel refers to the completion of Contex's first production run which was, we were told, shipped out to a distributor who had placed a significantly large order. We wonder if this distributor is IDEAL, a US Contex distributor, who is now "taking orders" for the newly launched Contex SD Series.

Appel's statement should draw a line under the rumours we hear about possible SD Series delays. While it is certainly true that Contex's past record of shipping new product on time is poor, there is now a new management team at Contex of whom Appel is an integral part. He can be forgiven for being unaware of past problems while focussing on getting new Contex product out of the factory on time.

Scanners4CAD has not seen the SD Series and has not yet evaluated it. We like the look of it but are unwilling to comment on it's quality until we have seen it. Some who did see it at the recent IRgA Show in Las Vegas in May suggested that perhaps it was not fully ready and that it would require fine-tuning. Whatever the truth and purpose of those rumours, this is entirely in the nature of new technology.

To quote one industry commentator "it takes six months to bed a new product down". The flip side of this is, possibly, don't buy new technology until the bugs and wrinkles are ironed out!

Those close to Contex say the SD Series is ready (barring some features that will be added with time, like TWAIN support). Distributors and resellers who have seen the SD Series are reinvigourated and are more enthusiastic about selling Contex products now than at any time in the last few years. They say the product has been well-received and has attracted widespread interest.

Despite the high quality of their engineering, Contex have had quality control problems in the past, the Contex Copymate 18 being an example. Ironically, what may slow down production of the SD Series is Contex's ISO 9000 quality controls which must be meticulously observed.

What is certain is that the Contex factory will shut down for three weeks in July for a holiday required by Danish labour law. Any backlog in orders will have to be cleared in August. So, expect some small delay in any event. Even so, this appears to be a storm in a teacup. Contex's factory, its management and workers impressed us when we visited! They have a lot riding on this new product, as do Contex's management team! Right now, any talk of a delay seems much exaggerated!

drupa 2008 has seen Canon preview its first 44” large format printers designed specifically for the CAD and GIS markets.

Canon's new imagePROGRAF iPF810 and iPF820 models are high speed, professional printers aimed at high volume CAD/GIS drawing offices requiring large format print productivity. They will output an A1 colour print in an impressive 24 seconds and an A0 print in 47 seconds.

The Canon imagePROGRAF iPF810 and iPF820 are both five-colour dye and pigment printers. Canon claim that they offer fast production speeds with efficient ink usage and a low total cost of ownership, making them two of the most appealing printers in this market sector.

The difference between the two printers is the paper roll capability. The iPF810 has a single paper roll while the iPF820 has a dual paper roll capability with auto switching to allow it to run large print jobs with different types and sizes of media. Both printers offer borderless printing, a feature which Canon claim is unique to them. This saves finishing time by removing the need for edge trimming.

"Hot swap" ink tanks in 330ml and 700ml capacity allow users to switch ink cartridge units on the fly, without interrupting the print run. An 80Gb hard drive provides the storage capacity to save repeat jobs, to queue print jobs and to dedicate up to 30 different mailboxes to individual clients, jobs or users. For security, files can be selected not to save or be deleted from the hard drive.

The imagePROGRAF iPF810 and iPF820 are claimed to be "significantly faster than some of their market leading rivals". We assume this is a reference to HP. In addition, the iPF810 and iPF820 can reproduce fine line widths down to 0.02mm, with a range accuracy of 0.1%, a factor that is crucial in the CAD / GIS markets where precision in building plans, maps and technical designs is critical.

Canon stress that their "minimum line width of 0.02 mm is a theoretical figure based on image resolution. Range accuracy can only be achieved when using CAD media - uncoated paper, matt-coated paper, CAD tracing paper or CAD translucent matt film." This detail is noteworthy only for the fact that it shows Canon are seriously attempting to define and improve their CAD printing credentials.

Can Canon take CAD printer market share?

HP claim that more HP Designjet large format printers are sold each year than all other large format printer brands combined. Since starting the HP Designjet phenonomen in the early 1980's more than 1.5 million HP inkjet plotters have been installed worldwide, giving HP the largest installed base in the market across AEC, CAD, mechanical, GIS, graphic design, reprographics and copyshops, etc.

While Canon have enjoyed growth in the large format printer market recently, especially in the reprographics market, the Big Question for many CAD users is "are Canon printers as suitable for printing large format technical drawings as HP printers?". With over 25 years experience in developing and leading large format CAD printing, many CAD users believe that HP provides the best solution. However, many CAD users will accept that Canon's strengths are colour graphics printers.

Anne Sharp, European Marketing Manager, Large Format Solutions, Canon Europe said "The iPF810 and iPF820 series can compete at the top end of the market on speed, accuracy and price, all of which are vital components in the CAD / GIS production market. We have made serious inroads into the market share of some of the traditionally established players in the last five years".

Sharp quotes figures from Infotrends that show they have increased total market share in Western European unit shipments across the technical large format segment between 24" and 59" sizes from 8.3% in 2006 to 18.2% in 2007. That is largely due to Canon's aggressive product rollout over the last two years.

Canon's success has not gone unnoticed.

Canon has just been awarded a BERTL’s BEST Award for Spring 2008 for their imagePROGRAF iPF710, iPF8000S and iPF9000S large format printers. In addition, the imagePROGRAF iPF6100 and iPF8000S received four star-ratings from BERTL, a leading US source of independent product evaluations

The iPF810 and iPF820 are both geared towards the CAD/GIS Production and Print-For-Pay environments where fast, cost-effective printing is a requirement. The other obvious target is large corporate CAD and GIS companies and local government departments and agencies with multiple users who need fast, high capacity printers for fast turnaround to produce large numbers of large format technical documents.

Canon imagePROGRAF printers are increasingly popular with large format scanner resellers, including those who sell Contex, Graphtec and other devices. By combining a scanner with a Canon printer to create a professional scan-to-copy system, large format resellers are able to provide powerful bespoke solutions at competitive prices that undercut expensive systems like the HP Designjet T1100.

Image Access has won BERTL's Spring 2008 Best Award in the large format scanner category with their WideTEK 36, the fastest wide format colour CCD scanner. The key to the Widetek 36's success is its unique design, speed and networkability.

Like the newer, wider 42" and 48" models, the WideTEK 36 has a built-in 1 Gb processor to speed up the scanning process and, importantly, shoot the scans across networks at practical speeds via web browsers to just about anyone anywhere!

As a design solution, the WideTEK series are in a class of their own. Image Access deserve recognition for having the vision and the courage to go out and develop a system that diverged from the more travelled route that the mainstream large format scanner industry has taken.

When released the WideTEK 36 had many innovative new features which are now becoming standard in other devices. Features like 1200 x 600 dpi true optical resolution, LED lamps with no warm-up time and an integrated touch screen for true walk-up scanning, printing and copying make the WideTEK 36 an impressive and a thoroughly deserving winner of the award it has received from BERTL.

During Scanners4CAD's evaluation of the WideTEK 36 we had the misfortune to carry it up two flights of stairs. It is no lightweight. It has many neat features but transportability is not one of them! There is little else to fault in the OS-independent WideTEK except its above-average price which, of course, buys German engineering! Most people will pay a bit more for the perceived benefits of Vorsprung durch Technik.

As CCD scanners the WideTEK series are best suited to scanning colour graphics. They can also be used for scanning technical drawings but will not have the same hair-splitting sharpness as a CIS device. Sometimes, often, this distinction between CCD and CIS has limited practical benefits. However, what the WideTEK series undoubtedly brings to a CAD or technical drawing office is unrivalled walk-up networkability and speed.

Image Access remain better known for their Book-Eye planetary scanners. Awards like this from BERTL will raise the WideTEK's profile among IT corporates and graphics professionals. Its rivals will console themselves knowing that the WideTEK has some way to go before breaking into the mass technical document market as a popular and ubiquitous device. Nevertheless, the WideTEK has more than enough features and benefits to find a niche for itself. Technogeeks will love it for its many neat touches and clever ideas, like the ability to plug in a USB stick and scan direct to that. Wonderful!!

BERTL Inc is a leading US source for objective, independent product evaluation reports and comparative analyses on digital imaging devices and workflow solutions.