Nuance Introduces ScanSoft OmniPage Capture SDK 15, Extending Worldwide Leadership in Scanning, OCR and PDF Developer Tools

Business Wire, May 17, 2006

PHILADELPHIA -- World's Leading Imaging SDK Sports Unrivaled Accuracy, Automatic Form Recognition, Support for PDF/A and PDF-MRC, Synthesized Speech, Microsoft .NET Extensions and More

Nuance Communications, Inc. (Nasdaq: NUAN), a leading provider of speech and imaging solutions, today introduced the ScanSoft(R) OmniPage(R) Capture SDK 15 at the AIIM Exposition and Conference in Philadelphia. The new release delivers the best in what matters most in an imaging software developer kit (SDK) - the highest levels of optical character recognition (OCR) accuracy, layout retention and performance available.

The OmniPage Capture SDK gives developers everything needed to quickly and easily add powerful imaging features to their existing applications, or to develop complete document capture or forms processing applications targeting desktop or server environments. This new release is the most comprehensive ever, delivering a set of new capabilities that will increase its value within traditional imaging application segments, as well as expand the use of imaging technologies to entirely new application arenas.

The OmniPage Capture SDK 15 can deliver accuracy levels of over 99 percent for OCR, an increase of up to 36 percent over the previous version and a performance that is up to 50 percent better than alternatives. Customers also benefit from the built-in support for dual-core, hyper-threading and multi-CPU systems, which deliver speed improvements of up to 32 percent. Application development has been greatly simplified through the delivery of high-level function calls, support for C, C++, COM, VB.NET and C# programming environments, and pre-made end user interfaces that include the new Workflow Assistant. The new release also includes features not available from any other imaging SDK, including Logical Forms Recognition (LFR) and Template Editor which simplify developing forms processing applications; RealSpeak(TM) Text-to-Speech for converting documents into audio files; and robust support for PDF, including new PDF/A and PDF-MRC formats.

"With this release, Nuance is delivering a set of features that developers can use to create powerful capture or forms processing solutions. The ability to selectively choose engines allows them to optimize performance in different environments," said Harvey Spencer, president of Harvey Spencer Associates. "Nuance has also made it easier for the developers to implement complete solutions more rapidly, and embrace new capabilities such as PDF/A, text-to-speech and scanning workflow within a single, scalable framework."

Key OmniPage Capture SDK 15 Capabilities

--Superior OCR Text Accuracy - Already judged by industry experts to be the most accurate OCR solution available, the new OmniPage Capture SDK release can achieve over 99 percent accuracy, an increase of up to 36 percent over the previous version, and up to 50 percent more accurate than alternatives. Best of all, where alternatives trade-off accuracy for significantly slower throughput, the new release delivers superior accuracy with improved throughput - making the OmniPage Capture SDK the ideal solution for high-volume document capture applications.

--"Hyper" Speed - The OmniPage Capture SDK 15 has a scalable multi-engine architecture that provides developers with the ability to match their accuracy and performance to specific tasks, resulting in the best combination of accuracy and speed. High-level voting interfaces speed the development processes, while built-in support for hyper-threading and multi-CPU systems provide developers with easy access to the greatest throughput possible.

--Unrivaled Layout Retention - For modern OCR applications, getting the text perfect is half the job. Also critical is the ability to precisely retain the layout of the original document - columns, tables and graphics - as you convert it to other formats, including Microsoft Office, Corel WordPerfect and XML. Again, OmniPage Capture SDK is the established leader in this area, and with the new release extends its layout accuracy lead with an improvement of 33 percent.

--Handprint, Barcode and Checkbox Recognition - The new release also includes accuracy improvements of 20 percent for its ICR (handprint) recognition capabilities; expansion of its barcode capabilities to include 18 different 1D barcodes as well as support for PDF-417 and Data Matrix 2D barcode recognition; and MICR (check processing) and OMR (checkbox) recognition engines.

--Automatic Form Template Creation and Editing - The new release includes Logical Forms Recognition(TM) (LFR), a technology unique to OmniPage that creates an XML-based template from existing documents and forms. Developers now have access to detailed structural information about a document or form, such as where date, text or numeric fields are located. A Template Editor is also included to simplify the process of changing or setting attributes for specific fields. The XML templates can be used to quickly implement forms and document capture applications, and can be used to automate the conversion of forms from image to fillable electronic formats.