Pfeiffer Review

Pixel!FX: Filling the Gaps in UNIX Imaging

By David Pfeiffer

A revolution is taking place in UNIX application technology: UNIX has found a home in corporate electronic document publications and Internet applications, such as Web Page production and image databases. UNIX systems have become the repository of network and groupware applications, data storage and, in many cases, database creation. Good application tools are in more demand than ever. Unfortunately, many gaps and user interface inconsistencies abound as software providers fill in these gaps with utility applications and by porting "PC" applications to UNIX systems (it is so common, you'd think it made one "politically correct").

When working with images on a UNIX platform, you might have as many as four applications open at once with four different user interfaces, no interoperability and all with the performance of a PC instead of a powerful UNIX machine. If this is your experience also, you should check out Pixel!FX for UNIX. Pixel!FX (PFX) is made for UNIX and does just about anything you would want to do to an image with a seamless Motif interface.

PFX supports the best corporate publications applications, namely FrameMaker and Interleaf, with application links that allow you to process images in PFX transparently, without the tedium of importing and exporting images. PFX allows you to scan line art, gray scale and color images and process these images before placing them in your document. PFX supports OCR and OCR page templates for the automated input of text information.

When preparing images for a Web page, or database, PFX adds a lot of value to the solution with a consistent UNIX interface. PFX supports over 20 scanners, gang scanning (setting and scanning more than one image at a time) and image editing capability for general image cleanup and enhancement. PFX also supports all the HTML image types including GIF, interlaced GIF, JPEG and progressive JPEG. PFX has a built-in database for managing large image databases with advanced search capabilities.

PFX complements Photoshop and fills in the gaps left by Photoshop, namely scanning, OCR, image database and basic 2-D graphics. Photoshop is still my choice for CMYK imaging, but for everyday scanning, image editing, OCR and image file conversions, PFX is my choice.

The PFX system is made up of six fully integrated modules, all with a surprisingly consistent interface: Pixel!SCAN, Pixel!OCR, Pixel!EDIT, Pixel!VIEW, Pixel!DB and Pixel!PRINT. Even though most of the named modules are sold separately, the user interface is almost seamless. Just about anything you would want to do with imaging and scanning is here.

Pixel!SCAN

Pixel!SCAN is PFX's strong suit. Pixel!SCAN supports over 20 scanners ranging from low-cost desktop scanners to high-end models. Some of the scanners supported include Agfa's line of scanners, the HP ScanJet series, and other scanners from MicroTek, UMAX and Fujitsu. An Elite version of the product supports high-end scanning devices. The platforms supported are Sun Solaris, HP-UX, Linux, IBM AIX and SGI IRIX.

The scanner interface has two levels of sophistication: the basic interface for the "crop, set the resolution and scan it now" person; and the advanced interface for the person who wants to manipulate the scanner's tone curve, calibration and other parameters. The preview is zoomable and the crop box movable, and it is easy to set up the scan. Another real time-saving feature is the ability to gang scan a batch of pictures. Here's how it works: say you have a set of 4" x 6" pictures to scan; place as many as will fit on the bed of your scanner and pre-scan the scan bed. Then crop and set the resolution and depth, etc., for each image and press the gang scan button. Then once all the images are set up, press the scan button, and, in a matter of minutes, you have scanned all the images. For workflow streamlining, you can set Pixel!SCAN to scan directly to disk, to an image editing window, to the database or to the OCR engine. Document feeders are also supported for maximum automation.

Pixel!EDIT

Pixel!EDIT is a powerful graphics and image editor for 1-bit, 4-bit, 8-bit and 24-bit images. For 4-bit and 8-bit images, several forms of dithering are supported for palette optimization. Pixel!EDIT supports the typical tone control, selection area masking, cropping and sizing tools that you would see in Photoshop. If you need to edit CMYK images or perform accurate RGB to CMYK separations, I would use Photoshop; otherwise, Pixel!EDIT will satisfy your imaging editing requirements. Some capabilities in Pixel!EDIT that you won't see in Photoshop are extensive 1-bit and 4-bit image editing, multi-level undo, and image stitching for pasting images together that have been scanned separately (useful for GIS, Remote Sensing and CAD applications). Also, Pixel!EDIT has great 1-bit pixel editing for cleaning up illustrations.

Pixel!EDIT also has basic drawing/text capability for burned in lines, rectangles, etc. You edit your graphics and text in an overlay plane, moving and sizing them as you desire. Then with a press of a button, the graphics and text are burned into the image. The graphics and text are not anti-aliased but are useful for image annotation.

Pixel!OCR

Pixel!OCR is a powerful system with support for OCR templates, auto-zoning and multi-language support. Once scanned, the image can be brought up manually in Pixel!OCR, or it can be set up to automatically convert the image into text. Pixel!OCR supports auto-zoning of multi-column documents. Once the zones are set up, you can change each zone's size and order and then save a template for form recognition. Although Pixel!FX has a rudimentary text editor, you'll probably want to use a more robust editor. In my test, Pixel!OCR also did very well in converting low-resolution fax documents to clean WYSIWYG text files.

Pixel!DB

Pixel!DB supports a complete image database for cataloging images and extensive file conversion capability. Pixel!DB allows you to store images and a text description of each image. An image database overview is available, along with a basic search capability. Also, PFX has extensive file type conversions, whereby you can convert one or many images from the database or a folder into another file type. File types like TIFF, JPEG, progressive JPEG, GIF and interlaced GIF are supported and are especially useful for Web Page development. Other file types for document processing include CCITT G3 and G4 TIFF.

Pixel!PRINT

Pixel!PRINT supports the printing of images on Postscript and several dye Sublimation Printers. The interface allows you to size and position the image on the page.

Under the Hood

For Value-Added Resellers and sophisticated users, Pixel!FX supports TCL for customization and batch file conversion, scanning and OCR. If you have to convert a batch of images or OCR a group of scanned images, you can write a shell script to run in the background. Unlike PCs, UNIX network capabilities allow scanners to be a shared resource.

Features	Photoshop	ScanWorks	Pixel!FX
Image Editing	X	-	X
Optical Character Recognition	-	X	X
Image Database	-	-	X
Graphics Layer	-	-	X
Frame / Interleaf Links	-	-	X

I particularly see Pixel!FX as the ideal Web Page/Image production tool for the native UNIX environment. You can OCR your text, scan your images, enhance them, save them in the Web image format of choice and save the image in the database for later use. Web masters will like the TCL support for batch file conversions.

Installation of PFX and the scanners is straightforward with the help of Mentalix's install scripts. As stated before, Pixel!FX is sold as separate modules, or the entire Pixel!FX Deluxe package can be purchased as an integrated suite. The Elite version is more pricey with support for high-end scanners. Mentalix has devised a network-based copy protection scheme that allows multiple users to share the modules from a server, and additional modules can be added at will. Maintenance agreements are also available.

The Bottom Line

No one can touch PFX's level of integration with support scanning, image editing, OCR, image database, printing, file conversions and batch processing. Pixel!FX is a complete imaging package, with the only caveats being the lack of CMYK editing and lackluster graphics/text. Frame and Interleaf users will greatly benefit from PFX's interoperability, and Photoshop users will find the scanning, OCR and image database essential. Since PFX was designed for UNIX, its fast and seamless interface is intuitive, making it easy to learn and use. All this makes Pixel!FX a "must have" for Web developers, Web Masters and corporate/tech pubs departments, or anyone scanning or working with images on a UNIX platform. This ain't no PC app ported to UNIX!

Dave Pfeiffer possesses more than 12 years of experience in the software engineering and image processing fields. He developed Intellihance, an automated picture processing filter, for printers and pre-press service bureaus and co-founded VITec, an image processing company. The co-author of four awarded patents, Mr. Pfeiffer's articles have been published in several industry magazines. As an independent consultant, Mr. Pfeiffer also writes freelance evaluations of software. He now serves as president of David Pfeiffer and Associates, which specializes in consulting and assisting clients with technology development and system engineering in the image processing and pre-press markets.