MetaTool

Download for Kofax Express 3.1On-Line Help

We refer to the CaptureBites MetaTool as our Swiss army knife. It indeed delivers a solution for a variety of challenges. You can use it to automate indexing with OCROCR stands for Optical Character Recognition and is a technique to convert a scanned image with machine printed text into real text., reformat your index data, generate image clippings, cleanup images, etc.  The tool presents itself as a standard Kofax Express export connector and performs its functions during export before sending it to a final destination such as Email, Folder Structure, FTP Server, Database, MS SharePoint, Alfresco, Xerox DocuShare, ViewBites, or other DMS systems.

 

  • No Coding But Configuration

Instead of one complex setup screen with hundreds of options, the MetaTool setup is based on a range of easy to understand rules such as “Extract Zone with OCR”, “Select line containing Words”, “Replace Text”, “Format Date”, etc.

Testing the rules is just one click away. You can try your rules on any image in your current batch using the viewer integrated in the MetaTool setup screen.

With the MetaTool you can tune Kofax Express to your very specific needs by using a standard tool. It’s customization without the disadvantages and cost of custom development. With custom development, you need expensive interventions for every change. With MetaTool changing or adding rules is a matter of tuning the setup yourself.

  • Automatic Indexing with OCROCR stands for Optical Character Recognition and is a technique to convert a scanned image with machine printed text into real text.

Extract index information completely automatically with OCR from fixed machine printed zones during export.  OCR works excellent on clean machine print and in many cases you won’t even have to verify the results anymore.  Just scan and export, that’s it.

This is how the OCR setup looks like. Just draw a zone around the text you want to extract and quickly check with the Test button what the result will be.

You can test with any image in your current batch.

Finally select the Kofax Express index field you want to automatically fill in with the result during export. Setup done!

You can also read large text blocks and then use a mask to extract floating data such as an account number, invoice number, total amount, machine ID etc.  Anything that has a more or less fixed format can be extracted from a large block of text.

Below you can see how the “Pro Number” is repeated on the document but sometimes one of the numbers is unreadable because of a folded corner or stamp. In this case we just read the full textReading the full text with OCR on the image below just takes seconds with a modern PC. and extract the Pro Number based on its format which consists of 3 groups of numbers separated by dashes.

If the first number fails because of a folded corner for example we can still find the second number as a back-up to automatically fill out the index data.

  • Reformat Index Data

Often you cant to split a bar code value in several segment, replace slashes with dashes in dates so you can put them in  the filename or reformat data to generate consistent output. For example the Giro Code in below examples is sometimes preceded with +++ and sometimes with ***.

To get consistent output, we can easily define a “Replace Text” rule to replace all * with + and consistently convert all codes to leading and trailing +++.

You can easily do this by using the simple Replace Text rule. Next, it’s only a matter of defining a rule to find the code preceded with +++ to extract it from the text block and use it to index the documents.

  • High Speed Data Validation

The MetaTool also features a highly optimized validation viewer.

You can configure it to only display the fields you want to validate.

Based on validation rules, the viewer will only show documents that don’t pass the rules.

The relevant zone on the image is highlighted while the rest of the image is dimmed but still readable.

For consistent data entry, you can define multiple choice fields. Through single letter shortcuts, any of the choices can be selected with a single key press.

For very critical data, you can force the user to always check a field even if it passes the validation rules.

 

  • High Speed Image Editing and Cleanup

Kofax VRS already solves a lot of image quality problems during scanning. Yet, there are still some image cleanup and editing functions that cannot be automated.

For manual cleanup the MetaTool’s Image Editor is the most efficient way to produce perfect images in the shortest possible time.

Erase sensitive information

Erase signatures or sensitive information from scanned images with the Erase Inside function. With automatic color detection, you can easily erases the selection with the surrounding background color. The Image Editor adjusts the erase color based on the place where you start drawing the selection.

Cleanup rough edges of damaged or old documents

With the erase outside function, you can erase anything outside the selection. The erase color is automatically selected based on where you start drawing the selection.

Irregular edges cannot be corrected by VRS auto-crop.

Just select the part you want to keep. Based on where you start drawing the erase color is automatically selected.

Release the mouse button and the area outside of the selection is filled with the correct color.

Crop part of an image.

Use the crop function when you need to crop photos to create security passes or store them in a database. Or if you want to store signature clippings in a signature verification database. In the MetaTool Image Editor setup, which can be configured per Kofax Express job, you can define a default selection size to obtain a consistent output size.

For example in the settings on the left, we have defined a square default selection of exactly 256 x 256 pixels. We will crop all our photos to that exact dimension and export them as JPEG files to a folder.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 The image editor’s setup, includes a viewer to draw the default selection. You can use any image of your current batch as sample image.

 For accurate work you can enter pixel precise dimension to define your default selection.

 We also enabled sticky selection mode to make the selection appear on every image automatically.

Then simply scan all your documents and export. The MetaTool Image Editor will open and the default selection will be prepositioned. If required, you can simply click inside the selection to move it.

 

Then press the Apply button or press ENTER (for left handed people) or SPACE BAR (for right handed people) to apply the actual crop.

Next press ENTER or SPACE BAR again to move to the next image.

 Triple level undo

If you are not happy with the last action, press the undo button or press Backspace or CTRL+Z to undo the last action. A second undo clears the selection and a third undo restores the original image.

You can apply triple level undo on any corrected image even after navigating away and back to it.

Thanks to the undo function, there are no more annoying and inefficient “Are you really sure?” messages. If you make a mistake, just press the Backspace key.

  • Generate Clippings

The MetaTool can also be used to clip a portion of an image and save it as a separate image. In that way you can preserve the original and the clipped image. In combination with the CaptureBites Multi Export connector you can even export each version to a different destination.

For example, by means of a special clipping viewer, you can select the address from an envelope and export it as a separate image to populate a database or generate a report.

Our Certified Mail Solution is a good example how address clipping can be used to fill out registered mail forms quickly and accurately.

 

  • Platform for New Functions

Thanks to its modular design based on a collection of simple Rules, the CaptureBites MetaTool will be regularly updated with new functionality.

So visit this page often to check what’s new or contact us and let us know what you would like to see next in the CaptureBites MetaTool.

 

I have a CaptureBites MetaTool feature request

 

About the download and included demo jobs

The download installs a functional version of the CaptureBites MetaTool. It also includes some demo images and demo jobs to show and test the functionality. All these jobs start with the words “CaptureBites MetaTool…” for easy reference. Just export the demo batches and check the output in the “CaptureBites after Export” folder on your desktop. We name the exported files according to the extracted data to make it very easy to check the automatic zonal OCR results.

In demo mode, a demo seal will be stamped in all exported images. You can switch the demo version to full production mode by entering an activation code which you can purchase from our partners. You can continue using any of the jobs you configured in demo mode after activation of the software.

If you don’t have Kofax Express yet, you can download a trial from here.