
Welcome to R2V for Windows 95 & NT, advanced raster to
vector conversion software for automated digitizing from
scanned maps, aerial photos and satellite imagery!


Installation:

In Windows 95 or NT, Select File and Run "a:install". The installation program
will create a R2VGroup and an icon for R2V for Windows 95 & NT.

Following steps are required if a HASP hardware key is provided to
enable the software under Windows 95 & NT. 

For Windows NT, you need to use a system administrator account or your 
account has all the system administrator rights to install device drivers.

1. Plug the hardware key to the printer port between your PC and the
printer connector.

2. Start a Command prompt window, and at the command prompt, run
        cd \r2v32 (change directory to where R2V is installed)
        hinstall /i   (Install the device driver for the hardware key)

3. Restart your computer. Use File/Shutdown to do this.

When Windows 95/NT starts, you are now ready to run R2V by
double click on the R2V for Windows 95 & NT icon.

Read the section of "Learn R2V for Windows in 30 Minutes" in the on-line
help to get a quick start.


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ABOUT R2V FOR WINDOWS 95 and NT...

Able Software R2V combines the power of intelligent automatic vectorizing  
technology with an easy-to-use, menu-driven, graphical user interface in the 
Microsoft Windows 95 and NT environment. The software converts scanned 
maps or images to vector formats for mapping, geographic information 
systems (GIS), CAD and scientific computing applications. The system is 
easy to use and can be learned quickly by users with any level of technical 
background. 

R2V provides an easy and complete solution to digitize vector data from 
image sources, such as scanned maps and drawings, aerial photos and 
satellite imagery. The entire raster to vector conversion process is fully automatic 
and needs no human intervention. You display the scanned image on screen 
and you select the vectorization command. That is all it takes! All the lines 
are extracted in seconds and displayed right on top of the image for you to 
verify and edit. Powerful editing and processing functions are provided to 
edit, geo-reference and label your data. R2V has all the tools to get a 
perfect set of vector data faster and easier than any other methods.

With R2V, you can forget about slow and inaccurate hand tracing on a 
digitizing tablet, simply scan your map or drawing and let R2V vectorize it 
automatically, at a high accuracy level. A typical contour or parcel map 
scanned at 200 DPI (dots/inch) as black/white or grayscale can be vectorized 
in seconds or minutes on a Pentium PC.

We know editing for both raster image and vector data is extremely important 
to you,  so we have made the effort to build easy to use and intelligent editors 
for you to handle all data types in one display window, including lines, points, 
polygons, text labels, image pixels and control points. With R2V, you can 
automatically vectorize maps or drawings, perform quick heads-up digitizing 
and georeferencing aerial photos or satellite imagery,  update your existing 
vector data sets using latest aerial photos or other images.

You have some color maps? No problem. Scan them in color, R2V will classify 
the colors and vectorize each color separately; Then label the  lines using the 
semi-automatic vector labeling tools. 

Whether your maps are contours, parcels, transportation and CAD drawings, 
or you have hundreds or thousands of them, R2V is the right tool for you 
because it is being used all over the world for all types of large and small 
digitizing projects. Our users have been impressed by how easy and how fast 
the digitizing job has become and the prompt technical support we have provided.

And what about remote sensing? SPOT satellite image format is supported. 
Natural source images can be automatically classified and segmented to 
generate region or boundary maps, all in R2V. 

R2V for Windows 95 & NT  FEATURES:

Image Input: Images in TIFF and BMP formats, supports bi-level, gray scale 
and color images (8-bit and 24-bit). No software limit for image sizes. Also
supports SPOT satellite image formats.

Vector Output: ArcView (Shape file), Arc/Info Generate,  DXF,  
MapInfo (MIF/MID), MapGuide SDL and 3D XYZ vector file formats. More 
vector file formats are being added.

Vectorization: R2V supports three types of vectorization:
1. Fully automatic vectorization. One command will vectorize your scanned 
map in seconds or minutes at high quality. Batch function allows vectorizing a 
number of maps without any user intervention. 
2. Interactive line tracing. You select two points on the image and let R2V 
trace the line for you. Easy and accurate!
3. Manual on-screen heads-up digitizing. With R2V's easy to use vector 
editor, you simply draw the lines with your image as the backdrop, zoom in 
and out, quickly create the data set for your specific applications. 

Vector Editing: A complete on-screen vector editor is provided using the image 
as a backdrop. Lines can be created, moved, joined, split, removed, colored and 
labeled. 

Vector Labeling and Contour Map Digitizing: Lines can be labeled with 
different ID values which are saved as attributes when exporting to a 
mapping or GIS package. Semi-automatic contour line labeling is 
supported for quick elevation assignments of contour lines.

Point Feature Digitizing: Complete support for digitizing of point features. 
Points can be created, moved and labeled. Point data can be exported to 
all the vector file formats supported.

Automatic Polygon Layer Creation: Create polygon layer automatically from 
vectorized lines with just one command. The closed polygons can then be 
edited, labeled using R2V’s line editor.

Raster Image Editing: R2V provides a powerful raster drawing tool for easy 
image pixel editing and repairing. All image types, including 1-bit monochrome, 
grayscale, 8-bit color and 24-bit color are supported by the Image Pixel Tool.

Geo-Referencing: Vector data can be geo-coded or geo-referenced to a real 
world coordinate system (e.g., UTM, Latitude/Longitude) using user selected 
control points or a World file (TFW). 

Raster images can be geo-referenced as well with a generated World file 
supported by ESRI's Arc/Info, ArcView, or TAB file by MapInfo. Image rubber 
sheeting function allows geometric correction or registration of an image 
to a new coordinate system. 

Automatic Text Detection and Recognition: Detect and recognize text of 
any font, any size and any language automatically. Flexible editor for easy 
removal and manipulation. Other irregular intersection symbols can be 
detected and corrected as well.

Merge Multiple Maps: Use R2V to vectorize the maps separately and then 
merge them into one set by specifying proper control points. The merged 
vector data set can then be edited within R2V and treated as a single map. 

Powerful Image Processing: Vertical and horizontal flip, transpose, rotate, 
remove dark background, edge detection, image resample, crop a region, 
smoothing, segmentation, warping and negate. Both supervised and 
unsupervised classification are built in to help process aerial photos or 
satellite imagery that are in color. Color separation, grayscale image 
enhancement and image type conversions can all be done using R2V.
 
Platforms and System Requirements: R2V has native versions for all 
windows platforms, Windows 95, Windows NT and even Windows 3.1. 
The software requires 486 PC or better, 8MB RAM, 16MB or more 
recommended for the best performance.
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Free Upgrades and Unlimited Technical Support: All R2V upgrades are free 
within 1 year of purchase, as well as unlimited technical support. 

Free fully functional demo is available at our Web site (www.ablesw.com). 
Try the demo with your own images to see how much time you can save by 
using R2V.

R2V is currently being used in more than 60 countries and here are some 
comments from the users and leading GIS journals:

"R2V is the fastest and finest automatic map vectorization software ever.", 
Mr. P. Hastings, Director, Environment Information Center, Thailand Environment 
Institute.

"R2V is incredibly easy to work with, it vectorizes extremely quickly at extremely 
high quality", Prof. Larry Poos, The Catholic University of America

"R2V does what it claims and more. Many users will find the package to be a 
useful addition to their mapping or GIS scheme", B. Gorham (Univ. of Arkansas), 
GIS World, August, 1995

"The most GIS-friendly product. Direct export of geo-referenced vector files in 
GIS formats. Little work needed on vectors brought into ARC/INFO. 
It has more image processing functionality than any other package.", 
Dr. L.A. Graham, "Modern Day Magic", GIS World, July 1997

"Able Software's customer support is excellent.", Mr. Jim MacKay, Office of 
Surface Mining Management, US Government

Note: Able Software, Able Software R2V, R2V for Windows & NT are trademarks 
of Able Software Co., all other trademarks are the property of their respective holders. 



For more information or comments, please contact: 
Able Software Co.
5 Appletree Lane,
Lexington, MA 02173, USA

Phone: 781-862-2804
FAX:   781-862-2640
Email: support@ablesw.com
Web: http://www.ablesw.com


