Premier TX 36

CADalyst, April, 2004

Premier TX 36

Contex Scanning Technology

www.contex.com

Star rating: 5 stars out of 5

Price: $9,900 Base; $11,900 Plus

Contex submitted two scanners for this roundup that at first appear to be identical, but on closer inspection differ significantly in their capabilities. The Contex PREMIER TX 36 is a monochrome wide-format scanner with a 36" imaging area that can capture up to E-size originals. The base model is priced at $9,900 and produces grayscale and black-and-white scans. An optional stand for the scanner costs $890. The Contex PREMIER TX 36 is the lowest-priced scanner tested here, although keep in mind it's monochrome-only.

Gray tones are captured at 14 bits for maximum precision, with the best 8 bits of gray tone data passed directly to the computer. An image depends on many gray tones to bring out details and give it depth. Setup was easy with this scanner, and calibration took only ten minutes.

The PREMIER TX 36 is attractive and proved to be fairly speedy at making high-quality scans. I have no complaints about the scan quality given the unit's capabilities--400dpi optical resolution holds less data and detail in the final scanned image than the 508dpi optical resolution of other scanners tested in this roundup. We're talking about subtleties here, such as the detail within what were browns on the topographic quadrangle map that I used as a test drawing for all scanners.

The PREMIER TX 36 uses digital cameras with advanced point-of-origin capture and on-board digital conversion to ensure minimum noise and an extended dynamic range. The scanner uses four-linear CCD technology with a special panchromatic line so that no colors are lost when scanning to monochrome images. The Premier TX 36 scans originals up to 0.6" (15mm) thick, including drawings and maps mounted on foamcore and gatorboards.

The PREMIER TX 36 includes WIDEsystem software to run the scanner, with WIDEimage ($990) scan-to-file software as an option. Contex also offers two free plug-ins, one for AutoCAD and one for PhotoShop. I scanned all the images on the Contex PREMIER TX 36 at 400dpi, with timing results of 6 seconds. Highly Recommended.

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