Accusoft.FormFix5.Net - Updated
Overview of FormFix
FormFix can be used in several types of applications. Some examples are:
You should consider other options in the following situations:
In a typical form processing system, your goal is to take images of various forms, recognize them, extract data from them, and save that data in a database.
You will want to use the following components in this scenario:
FormFix uses a proprietary and industry-proven approach to form identification that has the capability to match a filled image of an unknown template to one of many template images in a set. FormFix provides a confidence of the correctness of the match, for the best matching template and other templates in the set. The FormFix API also promotes easy alignment of the filled image with the corresponding template image.
In some cases, prior knowledge of the content of the filled image may allow you to provide FormFix more information to be used in identification and registration. FormFix can be configured to compare images at 90, 180, and 270 degrees, and exert different amounts of effort in the identification process.
If you control the layout of your forms, you may get faster and more reliable identification by placing a different barcode on each type of form. Then, you can precisely identify your forms before using FormFix. The known identity of the filled image can be passed to FormFix's identification process to precisely register your image. Simply use the provided mechanism to limit identification to the single, correct template. You should also investigate FormFix's registration mark functionality as it may be faster and more reliable for some scenarios.
FormFix provides the capability to generate a clip of field in a filled form, and to optionally dropout the template from the image, leaving only the filled data in the resulting clip image. The FormFix API also allows you to control whether the dropout process attempts to reconstruct areas of the filled image where the filled pixels overlapped with the template pixels. FormFix dropout requires that the image identification is known, and precise registration information can be provided; both of which are capabilities of FormFix’s identification processor.
There are alternates to using FormFix's drop-out algorithm, which are better in some cases.
Many forms processing applications achieve very good results using a drop-out bulb on each scanner. You must match the color of the bulb to the color of the form and you must be careful not to allow your user's to enter filled data using the drop-out color. Although the drop-out performance using this method is excellent, identification and registration can be quite difficult unless you can use a barcode or other technique for identification and some form of registration marks for registration. FormFix has functionality to help you register your images using registration marks.
ScanFix has line removal, comb removal, and virtual bulb technology that you can use in place of FormFix's drop-out in some cases. Unlike using color drop-out bulbs on a scanner, you can select between ScanFix and FormFix on a field-by-field basis to get the best performance in every case.
The most common uses of ScanFix are to deskew images before identification and to remove noise on field clips before extracting data from them.
A common simplification of general forms processing is a similar system that accepts only a single form. This is common in very low volume applications where a user scans and interactively processes a batch of pages with a consistent form. It is also common in a few high-volume applications, when a company sends out a single form to be filled out and returned for processing.
Although this scenario differs from the one above because form identification is not necessary, you can treat it the same as general-purpose form processing with an alternate form identification method, such as barcode.
In an image sorting application, your goal is to take images of various forms, sort them by type, then archive the result. Typically, little or no data is captured in this type of system.
Use these components in these scenarios:
If you want to align your archived images to match your template images, you should use FormFix to align them before you save them to disk and archive them.
You should consider other options in this situation.
FormFix is designed to work with forms that have a consistent layout and can be prepared in advance. If you wish to process free-form documents, FormFix will not be very helpful. FormFix works best when processing structured documents where each field has a fixed position.