Scan, Smile. Scan, Smile. 11,400 Times

1Scan has just finished scanning over 11,000 slides and negatives for the Multimedia & Information Systems Group at Imperial College London - 1Scan's biggest contract ever. Laid end to end the slides would reach to the top of Nelson’s Column three times over. As each scan has at least one face, that’s more than the population of Ashby-de-la-Zouch, Halstead or Tavistock.

Dr Stefan Rueger, head of the Multimedia & Information Systems Group, said, "We are conducting research to develop a powerful facial recognition system that is able to follow individual faces through the decades. We need a comprehensive database of real-world images from personal collections to develop and test our software.”

"Naturally, we wanted both value for money and high quality standards. Image quality was particularly important. We need as little dust and image imperfections as possible, not to mention colour restoration on some images which are over 30 years old."

Jeff Underwood of 1Scan explained how the process was developed. "We produced a set of sample scans using a wide range of settings. It quickly became apparent that the Digital ICE facility on our Nikon scanners was vital to produce good, clean colour images.”

"Working closely with Dr Rueger we created three sets of scan parameters for colour negatives, slides and monochrome negatives. As scans were being carried out Dr Rueger gave us valuable feedback so we could fine tune the process."

Having scanned over 11,000 images, burned over 40 DVDs containing 180 Gb of data the scanning part of the project is now finished. Dr Rueger and his team are now using the scans to take their project toward completion.