Image Access Factory
Technicians assemble scanners at the Image Access factory in Wuppertal, Germany.
Thomas Ingendoh
Editor’s Note: Image Access manufactures wide-format scanners for the reprographics market, as well as book scanners, in Wuppertal, Germany. The company was founded 1994 by Thomas Ingendoh, an electrical engineer who is still the head of design for his company. He answered some questions about his company and the future of scanning.
Ed Avis: How did you happen to found this business?
Thomas Ingendoh: I had been an executive at another company that developed industrial computers. During my last two years there I developed an imaging system that consisted of a scanner board and a graphics board. I foresaw a big market in that respect, so when I left that company and founded Image Access, I decided to focus on scanning.
Avis: What was your first product?
Ingendoh: Our first development was a full-color graphics board, 1600 x 1200 pixels. We OEMed that to Siemens Medical. At that time graphics boards at that resolution were outrageously expensive and rare, and we filled a need with a less expensive model.
Avis: When and how did you get into wide-format scanning?
Ingendoh: In 1995 we began a project with KIP to make a more multi-purpose machine. At the time, their copier worked by connecting the CCD (charged couple device, basically the “eye” of the scanner) elements directly to the printing element. We physically cut the cable between those elements and routed it through a PC-based graphics board. This allowed the PC to capture the data from the CCD elements, and so the machine could be used as a scanner, printer, and copier. We called that board HiSCAN. The HiSCAN board could be used to process data from all different types of scanners, and it was extremely fast.
Avis: How did you go from making the board to making entire scanners?
Ingendoh: We developed our own OEM camera that same year, 1995, and were providing it to sheet fed scanner manufacturers. So when you have the camera and the interface board, all you need to make a complete scanner is a lens and a light source, and that’s not that big of a step. So by 1997 we had developed the Bookeye, the first complete Image Access scanner. As the name tells you, it was a book scanner.
Avis: But what about a large-format scanner?
Ingendoh: We didn’t develop an Image Access wide format scanner until about six years later. At that time we were shipping cameras to Bell & Howell/Kodak. These were designed as a complete unit, with a lens, mirror, illumination and CCD all in one frame. We figured out that we could easily put two or three of these units side by side to create a large-format scanner. The only other things we needed were the computer and a mechanism to move the paper. I had been doing a lot of research for Bell & Howell on paper movement, and of course that knowledge could be applied to wide-format scanners, too. That was the last piece that we needed. We launched our WideTEK scanners in 2003.
Avis: Where does WideTEK fit in the market?
Ingendoh: In wide-format business we have a pyramid. At top end are high-performance machines that are targeted toward heavy users, such as service companies. This is where we compete very well. The next level of the pyramid is basically same machine but with CIS (contact image sensor) elements instead of CCDs. CIS scanners are a little less expensive, and they work well if the consistency of the paper is OK. If you’re working with old rolled sepias or other originals like that, you need the high-end CCD scanner because the CCD does not need to actually touch the paper, the way a CIS does. We have had a CIS scanner since 2011. The base of the pyramid is basically a multi-function device with a printer. This is the largest piece of the market but we don’t have an offering in that range.
WideTEK scanners, like all Image Access scanners, come with the computer built in. This makes all of our scanners complete systems; with our competitors, you need to buy the PC separately, which also means that you have more than one piece of equipment that can fail and has to be supported by more than one vendor
Avis: What do you envision for the future of the wide-format scanning market?
Ingendoh: We think the wide-format market is peaking right now, as everyone is converting old paper documents. So next we will probably see a decrease in the size of the market. Fortunately for us, the book scanner market continues to grow. People say only 5 to 8 percent of the world’s literature has been digitized, so there’s enough to do until I retire!
Avis: Any new products on the way?
Ingendoh: There are lots of other things that can be scanned – art, fabric, etc. – and we already have the scanning mode with surface detection to create a 3D effect. So next year at CEBIT we will have prototypes of a new art scanner. Many of the elements of our scanners can be re-used in different applications – it’s a building block philosophy. So we are going to continue opening new markets.