The English term scanner He arrived in Spanish as scanner . It is a device that is used for scanning and registering an image . The result of this activity is translated by the scanner in electrical signals That can be processed.
He computer scanner or computer scanner It is the most popular. This peripheral uses light to convert images (a document, a photograph, etc.) into a digital file. Once this file is obtained, it can be edited and modified in the computer .
The first scanner of this type was developed in 1984 . It only generated black and white images of low resolution. Over the years, the quality of the result improved greatly. At present, the scanner is usually integrated into the printer , giving rise to what is known as Multifunction printer .
Scanning an image is a process which presents a relatively high degree of complexity if we want to obtain the best results, but which can be greatly simplified if we take advantage of the assistance provided by specialized programs. For a user without technical knowledge about the image, just press a button and in a few seconds the capture will be finished, generating a file in the default folder per program. Others, however, must pay attention to various parameters.
One of the most important properties of a scanner is the resolution that it is capable of capturing, which is measured in dots per inch (This unit of measure is known as ppp). This value is of the utmost importance for people who wish to print their scanned documents and photos, and therefore must correspond to the capabilities of the printer so that the selected quality can be used.
On the other hand is the color depth (also known as bpp or bits per pixel). It is a concept that refers to the number of bits needed for the representation of the color of each pixel. The higher the color depth, the more colors the scanner can capture (on monitors, this is reflected in the amount of colors it can reproduce).
For document capture, the optical character recognition , a process that the computer must perform on the scanned image to identify alphanumeric characters and convert the file to a text document. This avoids the user the need to enter it by hand.
The popularity of the scanner as device Image capture has crossed a very particular path, with a rapid rise to the peak and a fall to an unexpected rival: the mobile phone. Although the camera of a phone cannot offer the same precision when it comes to scanning a document, most people prefer it to a traditional scanner since it occupies less space, they always have it with them and thus eliminate the need to buy and keep another device.
A barcode scanner , on the other hand, it is a machine that can "read" a barcode (a series of lines of different thicknesses and with different spaces that contain information). The scanner registers the code in question and sends it as an electrical signal to a decoder that displays the data.
In the medicine On the other hand, there are different kinds of scanners. Appealing to X-rays, magnetic resonances, ultrasound or ionizing radiation, these devices offer images of the inside of the organism (organs, bones, etc.). Scanner studies are very important for the diagnosis and treatment of numerous health disorders.
A body scanner Finally, it is a device security which allows a person to be checked without establishing a physical contact. Through high frequency radio waves, the scanner can show the objects that the individual wears under his clothes.
