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LEAD Technologies, Inc. is proud to announce the release of LEADTOOLS V16.5. This release adds several major features to LEADTOOLS that are focused on providing solutions to developers in the ECM, EMR, document and medical imaging communities. These new features include a new OCR engine, an updated OMR module, and a completely revamped forms recognition and processing development interface. V16.5 carries LEAD's new WCF services and Window Workflow Foundation (WF) activities for various imaging related tasks including OCR. Additional new advancements include support for the updated TWAIN 2.0 specification, new image processing functions, a virtual printer driver to capture output as EMF from any application, and document writer functions to convert EMF to many popular text and document formats. New features for medical imaging include an optimized DICOM PACS framework that enables the rapid development of DICOM service class users and providers, and enhanced extended grayscale support.

"LEADTOOLS v16.5 is easily the most extensive mid-version release LEAD has ever delivered" states Gabriel Smith, LEAD's Director of Marketing. "In fact, the various teams debated as to whether we should be releasing this edition as LEADTOOLS v17 instead of v16.5. Although we settled on v16.5, in order to reward our loyal v16 customers with a FREE upgrade, we are confident that both existing and new customers will be impressed by the amount of new features and enhancements with this release".

New SDK additions to the LEADTOOLS Product Line

• LEADTOOLS PACS Imaging SDK
• LEADTOOLS Recognition SDK
• LEADTOOLS Document Imaging Enterprise Edition

New Add On Module additions to the LEADTOOLS Product Line

• LEADTOOLS Advantage OCR SDK
• LEADTOOLS Professional OCR Module - Asian OCR support
• LEADTOOLS Virtual Printer Module

Major new features within the existing LEADTOOLS Product Line

• WCF for Imaging and OCR
• Windows WF Activities for Imaging and OCR
• Silverlight Image Viewer Control
• Enhanced Grayscale Image Data Support
• Updated and improved JPEG and JPEG2000 support
• Image Segmentation technology
• Support for TWAIN 2.0
• Data DVD and CD creation
• More image file formats

"This new version addresses many requests we have received from our customer base as they maintain their existing applications", according to Otis Goodwin, LEADTOOLS Developer Support Manager". As an example he pointed to support for the updated TWAIN 2.0 driver. Otis continues, "Version 16.5 provides new products and new platforms for developers who are creating the next generation of imaging applications".

LEADTOOLS PACS Imaging SDK
LEADTOOLS PACS Imaging SDK is a new addition to the LEADTOOLS Medical Imaging product line. LEADTOOLS PACS Imaging is a complete medical imaging and PACS client/server SDK. Medical imaging features include full DICOM dataset support, full DICOM communication and security, and features support for 8-16 bit grayscale image processing and display with overlays, annotations, window leveling and LUT processing. For PACS client/server development, LEADTOOLS PACS Imaging introduces the new LEADTOOLS DICOM PACS Framework SDK. The framework's modular design enables developers to quickly implement DICOM services plug-ins, freeing up time to work on non-DICOM portions of the application such as the user interface. Several source code sample implementations such as Store, Find, Query/Retrieve, Modality Work List and Storage Commit are included.

LEADTOOLS Recognition and Document Imaging Enterprise SDKs
The LEADTOOLS Recognition and LEADTOOLS Document Imaging Enterprise SDKs are new products introduced in the version 16.5 Document Imaging product line. They are cost saving bundles of various LEADTOOLS Document Imaging products and features. LEADTOOLS Recognition includes a full range of recognition technologies by bundling LEADTOOLS Document Imaging SDK, Advantage version OCR Module, PDF OCR Plug-in, Forms Recognition Module, 1D and 2D Barcode Modules. LEADTOOLS Document Imaging Enterprise includes a full range of recognition technologies plus additional PDF and document capture and conversion technologies by bundling LEADTOOLS Recognition, Raster PDF Read and Write Modules, and LEADTOOLS Virtual Printer Module.

New OCR SDK Modules
This release adds LEADTOOLS Advantage and Asian OCR modules. They are ideal for developers who need to recognize full page and zone based machine print text. All LEADTOOLS OCR modules are multi-thread safe for 32 and 64 bit development. Supported output formats include PDF, PDF/A, DOC, HTML, RTF and TXT. Additionally, these new modules leverage the LEADTOOLS common development interface. By using this common interface, developers can easily change the underlying OCR engine with one line of code, if the requirements of an application change.

Forms Recognition Module Update
LEADTOOLS Form Recognition Module has been optimized and is now 50% faster than what was previously available. Additionally, version 16.5 introduces a new high-level forms recognition and processing interface. The new interface increases the ease of use and decreases the time required to develop forms recognition and processing applications.

New Virtual Printer Module
The LEADTOOLS Virtual Printer Module is a new module in version 16.5. The module includes a programmable virtual printer driver and a collection of document writers. With the virtual printer driver, developers can capture and convert output from any application to EMF. Also included with this module are several document writers to convert EMF to popular document formats such as PDF, PDF/A, Word Doc, HTML, RTF and TXT.

New WCF Services for Imaging and OCR
Windows Communication Foundation (WFC) is a development interface targeted to scalable enterprise development and is now available in the Document and Medical Imaging product lines. LEADTOOLS WCF services include support to load, save and convert over 150 image formats, image processing, document image cleanup, OCR, and barcode detection, reading and writing. LEADTOOLS WCF services may be accessed via several protocols including HTTP, TCP, IPC and MSMQ. Depending on how you want to access the services, they may be hosted in IIS, Windows Activation Service or any .NET managed application process including console, Win Forms, WPF and Windows service applications.

New Windows WF Activities for Imaging and OCR
Windows Workflow Foundation (WF) activities for process driven development are a new develop interface added to products in the Document and Medical Imaging product lines. LEADTOOLS Windows WF activities include support to load, save and convert over 150 image formats, TWAIN and WIA scanning, image processing, document image cleanup, OCR, and barcode detection, reading and writing. These activities can be hosted in any .NET managed application domain or any third-party application framework that supports Windows WF such as Microsoft Office SharePoint Server and Microsoft Dynamics CRM.

New Silverlight Image Viewer Control
The new LEADTOOLS Silverlight Image Viewer control for Rich Internet Application (RIA) development can load and display all Silverlight supported image formats and can be easily extended to display any of the over 150 image formats supported by LEADTOOLS including JPEG 2000, JBIG, DICOM and PDF. The viewer features several user interactive modes including pan, scale, center at, zoom to and customizable magnify glass. Additionally, images can be zoomed and displayed using several different size modes such as normal, fit, fit width and stretch. To make the navigation of large or zoomed images easier, the viewer includes a pan window.

Because the LEADTOOLS Silverlight Image Viewer is designed with extensibility in mind, the viewer can be effortlessly extended with additional features. By leveraging LEADTOOLS WCF services, document image clean up, image processing and barcode creation are just some of the features that can be seamlessly incorporated into applications that use the LEADTOOLS Silverlight Image Viewer.

LEADTOOLS includes sample Silverlight projects to demonstrate all of the viewer's capabilities, plus how to extend the viewer to display over 150 image formats supported by LEADTOOLS.

Grayscale Image Data Support
LEADTOOLS version 16.5 adds to its existing comprehensive support of extended grayscale data by including true 16-bit LUT support as well as support for hardware window leveling.

JPEG and JPEG 2000 Enhancements
JPEG 2000 and lossless JPEG compression/decompression support within the LEADTOOLS product line has been optimized. In version 16.5 the LEADTOOLS JPEG 2000 decoder is 300% faster for lossy images and 10% faster for lossless images. The lossless JPEG decoder is 300% faster for 24 bit color images and up to 50% faster for 8, 12 and 16 bit grayscale images.

New Image Segmentation Function
AutoZone is a new image processing function in version 16.5 that detects different zone types within mixed raster content images. With AutoZone, the image can automatically be broken up into text and image zones for additional processing, zone specific compression or OCR.

New TWAIN 2.0 Driver Support
LEAD continues to lead the industry by expanding LEADTOOLS all-inclusive TWAIN support to include 32 and 64 bit TWAIN 2.0 drivers.

New Data DVD and CD Support
LEADTOOLS version 16.5 supports the creation and burning of data CDs, DVDs and ISOs using .NET or COM.

New Image Format Support
LEADTOOLS version 16.5 adds support for the Vista and XP thumbnail (TDB) and Microsoft Access Report Snapshot (SNP) formats, adding to the over 150 formats supported by LEADTOOLS imaging SDKs. With the release of LEADTOOLS version 16.5, LEAD reinforces its position as the world leading developer of imaging and imaging related SDKs. LEAD is dedicated to being the only choice for developers who want a comprehensive and time-tested imaging SDK that stays at the forefront of new imaging technologies and development paradigms.

Pricing and Availability
LEADTOOLS Version 16.5 is available for order now with pricing starting at $495 for a developer license. For more information visit www.leadtools.com.

About LEADTOOLS
LEADTOOLS is a family of award-winning imaging developer toolkits for integrating raster, vector, document, medical and multimedia imaging technology into applications. LEADTOOLS toolkits are used by nearly every Fortune 500 company, including Microsoft, HP, Kodak, GE, Canon and Sony. These customers, and tens of thousands of others, leverage the time-tested and robust LEADTOOLS libraries in their internal and commercial software applications. By using LEADTOOLS, developers are able to significantly reduce time-to-market for their applications, thereby maximizing productivity and ensuring the greatest possible return on investment.

About LEAD Technologies
LEAD Technologies, Inc., is a privately-held company based in Charlotte, North Carolina, and is a leading provider of imaging technology for software developers and end users. Since inception, in 1990, LEAD has been a pioneer in the field of digital imaging and compression technology offering best of breed standards-based technology, as well as superior proprietary alternatives. Every day, LEAD's innovative technology is used on tens of millions of computers throughout the world.

SOURCE: LEAD Technologies Inc.