Mobile capture: what they say, how everything is in fact and what will happen

From the translator . One of the activities of our company is the industrial scanning of documents .
In foreign texts on ECM (Enterprise Content Management), the term capture is used to denote the operation of digitizing documents, recognizing them, indexing and storing them in the system. Like many other terms from the field of ECM, it has no literal analogue in Russian. It is usually translated as “capture” (we use this particular option) or “input”.

Under the digitization of documents is often taken to understand their scanning and recognition. But the meaning of the term “capture” is much broader: not only scanned paper documents are introduced into electronic document management and document storage systems: it is often necessary to convert to suitable for long-term storage format and save documents received by fax or e-mail in the system. Capture operations involve not only the translation of a graphic image into text, but also the subsequent analysis of the text, followed by the extraction of the necessary data.

Data capture technologies using mobile phones and tablets are becoming increasingly popular in the overseas ECM community. Mobile capture allows, for example, to automate such routine operations as paying bills. Already there are programs that analyze the snapshots of accounts and extract data from them for payment, which are then transferred to applications for managing electronic payments.
In recent years, many interesting developments have appeared in the field of mobile capture. Already have scanners that allow you to scan a document, just turning the pages:
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Is the universal passion for mobile technology a tribute to fashion or is it the beginning of truly revolutionary change? We will try to understand this, referring to foreign publications on the topic. The series of articles on the use of mobile devices in ECM we begin with the translation of the article by Chris Riley, marketing director of the American company Pingar. The article was written almost two years ago, but many of the thoughts expressed have not lost their relevance now.



What they say . The main problem associated with mobile capture should be obvious to all users - but in reality this is not the case. What determines the accuracy of recognition and data extraction? Of course, from the used hardware and software. In addition, the human factor plays a much larger role in mobile capture (compared to traditional methods). It is interesting to note that the more widespread mobile capture technologies are, the less attention is paid to working with them. I think these issues will be given much more importance than they are now. Particular attention should be paid to the human factor. Of course, with the help of mobile devices one can hardly get images of the same quality as with stationary devices. But images with quite comparable quality can be obtained. Technologies designed to improve the image quality at the output will be adapted for mobile devices.

Another problem is related to usability. Marketing and advertising texts assure us that everything mobile is convenient by default, but in reality everything is far from true. Try to capture a multi-page document on a mobile phone: it may very well be that you will not immediately be able to focus the camera so that all the text on the page can be easily read. If we write by hand for a long time, then with each page the hand gets tired, and the handwriting becomes less readable. The same is true with mobile capture: the quality of subsequent pages will inevitably be worse than previous ones, and digitization of multi-page documents will take a very, very long time.

How it is in reality . Let's talk now about the benefits of mobile capture. Of course, it can be very popular among users. For example, it will help to track personal documents more effectively. Mobile capture technologies can be helpful for insurance agents, health workers serving patients at home, for truck drivers ... and this is not a complete list. Mobile capture allows you to get rid of excess paper, to minimize the number of cases of loss of documents. Go ahead. Capture directly from a mobile device would be ideal in cases where you need to digitize a document that includes a small number of pages. The undoubted help for users will be the creation of an application in which the whole process of digitization is divided into elementary, user-friendly steps. Now they talk a lot about resolution and other quantitative characteristics of cameras, but almost no one says what the user should know and be able to do. But the end result depends on this knowledge and skills.
For scanning multi-page documents, special portable scanners are better suited. They will be able to provide much higher quality. Of course, the cost of such devices will be much higher; in addition, they may have specific technical requirements.

Scenarios for the use of mobile capture technology in an organization can be very different - depending on the scope of its activities. Take, for example, the scope of logistics and shipping. The driver can digitize the accompanying documents and immediately send them to the consignees and regulatory authorities, so that checking the paper documents on the route will not take so long. Ordinary users will be able to exchange paper documents much more quickly. Recently, for example, I signed a three-page contract with a wedding photographer, but forgot to scan it. Fortunately, I had a mobile phone at hand. I shot a page on a mobile phone camera, and then converted it into pdf using a special program.

What will happen . Undoubtedly, mobile capture technologies have a great future. These technologies will be developed, and in a direction that may seem unexpected to you. Attention will be focused on the techniques and methods of effective work, and not on cool gadgets. Cloud technologies will also be actively developed and used to capture, recognize and extract data. There will also be new applications for validation and validation.
There will also be a lot of interesting changes on the market.

Capture using the actual mobile devices will be popular among individual users. Cloud computing will play a huge role in this. Great attention will be paid to improving user experience and working efficiency. The user will simply receive the result without thinking and even without knowing about the technologies used in this process. Everything will be focused not on improving the resolution of cameras, but on improving the algorithms used and improving the usability of the programs.

Portable scanners will be in demand by organizations. Manufacturers of "iron" will actively work in this direction. The structure of portable scanners will include slots for memory cards and a bluetooth module. Mobile devices will connect with scanners via bluetooth; The scanners can be powered from the USB interface. Applications will be created to compress data during transmission to the server and improve the accuracy of their recognition.
My experience shows that marketing texts do not yet tell us the truth about mobile capture technology. But very soon the result of the development of technology will exceed all expectations. Over the next two years, the market for mobile capture technologies will become more mature and mature.