
Welcome to R2V for Windows 9x & NT, advanced raster to
vector conversion software for automated map digitizing and GIS
data capture from scanned maps, aerial photos and satellite imagery.
R2V is currently being used in more than 60 countries.


Installation:

From Windows 95 or NT, Select Start and Run "a:setup.exe". The installation 
program will copy files from the disks to your harddisk drive and
create a R2VGroup, an icon for R2V for Windows 95 & NT, an icon for 
"Enable Hardware Key" and an icon for this file.

Following steps are required if a hardware key is provided and
this is the first time you install R2V or upgrade from an old version to
enable the hardware key 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. You need to install the hardware key driver with the following steps:

a. Open a command prompt window.
b. Change to R2V32  directory (ie., cd \r2v32)
c. Type the following command line and "Enter" to run:
	hinstall  /i

3. If asked to restart your computer, use "Start/Shutdown" to do this.

When Windows 9x/NT starts, you can run R2V by
double click on the R2V for Windows 9x & 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 9x 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 9x 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 9x & NT  FEATURES:


Image Input: Images in TIFF and BMP formats, supports most image types, including 
1-bit bi-level, 8-bit gray scale and color images (4-bit, 8-bit and 24-bit). Most TIFF 
image compressions are supported. No software limit for image sizes. Also supports 
SPOT satellite image formats.

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

Advanced 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. Write your own batch script to customize the processing 
steps for the images before vectorization and vector line processing after the vectorization.

2.  Interactive line tracing. You select two points on the image and let R2V trace the line for 
you. Easy, accurate and intelligent! For complex maps or drawings, use the interactive 
tracing to vectorize lines selectively. Or use the multiple line tracing function to vectorize 
a group of lines with only two clicks.

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. 

Complete 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.

Multiple Layers: Use R2V’s layer manager to define as many layers as needed to organize 
vectorized data into layers. Layers created in R2V is fully compatible with the export 
vector file formats that support multi-layer structure. With multiple layers defined, vector 
data can be processed, edited and displayed by layer and moved between layers.

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.

Powerful 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. Pixel 
mapping function can easily map one pixel value to another for the entire image to 
remove noise pixels, clean up image background, or merge color layers.

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). R2V supports both bi-linear and Delaunay triangulation methods 
for geometric transformation. 

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. 

Advanced 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.

3D Display:  Create 3D data set (3D grid or DEM) automatically from your labeled 
line data and display them using R2V's advanced 3D display and animation function. 
View your data in 3D at any angle and distance.
 
System Requirements: R2V runs under Windows 9x, Windows NT (R2V 32-bit 
version) and Windows 3.1 (R2V 16 bit version). 486 PC or better, 8MB RAM, 
32MB or more to provide best performance for large images.
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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 Corp., all other trademarks are the property of their respective holders. 



For more information or comments, please contact: 
Able Software Corp.
5 Appletree Lane,
Lexington, MA 02420-2406, USA

Phone: 781-862-2804
FAX:   781-862-2640
Email: support@ablesw.com
Web: http://www.ablesw.com/r2v


