Technical FAQs

Question

How do I use a Network Drive path for Image and ART storage in my ImageGear .NET web application?

Answer

In an ImageGear .NET web application, you have to define the location of the images and annotations directory in the storageRootPath and artStorageRootPath configuration property.
In the current version of ImageGear .NET, the storageRootPath and artStorageRootPath do not work with a network drive path \\SERVER-NAME\sharefilename.

The workaround for this would be to create a Symbolic link from a local directory to the network drive directory.

  • To create a symbolic link: Open “Command Prompt” as Administrator and type in > mklink /d "local path" \\SERVER-NAME\sharefilename
  • Pass in the path of the symbolic link as image or art storage root path in your web.config: storageRootPath="local path" artStorageRootPath="local path"
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Question

Why do I get a “File Format Unrecognized” exception when trying to load a PDF document in ImageGear .NET?

Answer

You will need to set up your project to include PDF support if you want to work with PDF documents. Add a reference to ImageGear24.Formats.Pdf (if you’re using another version of ImageGear, make sure you’re adding the correct reference). Add the following line of code where you specify other resources:

using ImageGear.Formats.PDF;

Add the following lines of code before you begin working with PDFs:

ImGearFileFormats.Filters.Insert(0, ImGearPDF.CreatePDFFormat());
ImGearPDF.Initialize();

The documentation page linked here shows how to add PDF support to a project.

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PrizmDoc Viewer HTML5

Adding viewing and document conversion capabilities to an application can be a daunting task, especially when a development team is facing resource constraints and a tight schedule. That’s why many developers turn to API-based viewing integrations like Accusoft PrizmDoc Viewer instead of building those features from the ground up. By leveraging the versatile power of HTML5 viewing, they can quickly expand software capabilities without having to rethink the basic framework of their products.

What’s Under the Hood of PrizmDoc Viewer?

To understand how PrizmDoc Viewer goes about rendering documents in a web application, it’s helpful to take a closer look at its underlying architecture. There are two primary components that work in concert with the application’s web server: the HTML5 viewer and the backend.

The HTML5 viewer is integrated to run in the browser, typically via a web page or portal that serves as the front-facing aspect of the application. This is where document content is rendered as SVG elements. Since the viewer uses HTML5 to display content, it isn’t dependent upon any specific word processing software or imaging program.

Most of the heavy lifting is handled by the PrizmDoc Viewer backend, which consists of the PrizmDoc Server and PrizmDoc Application Services (PAS). PrizmDoc Server is the core computing component. It performs the actual conversion process to convert document pages to SVG, but it doesn’t have any permanent storage. Converted content and annotation markups are instead stored in PAS. The PAS component primarily handles long-term storage and hands files off to the server for conversion or processing. 

Critically, PAS also has privileged access to other storage locations used by the application, such as file systems or databases. This allows it to easily retrieve source documents and hand off tasks to the server.

The Role of the Web Application

The web application server sits between the HTML5 viewer component and the backend component. It functions as a reverse proxy that relays requests between the two, passing content requests from the viewer to the backend and then delivering converted SVG content from the backend to the viewer.

PrizmDoc Viewer doesn’t actually work with the source documents in the application’s storage. They remain safely unaltered while the backend generates a converted version for viewing and annotation. The web application typically only makes REST API calls to PAS. Background conversion that doesn’t involve the viewer, however, can be performed by making a direct call to PrizmDoc Server.

Making the HTML5 Magic Happen: Viewing a Document

When the web application has to open a stored document for viewing, each component of PrizmDoc Viewer plays a special role in the process. Everything begins with the web application sending a request to PAS to create a new viewing session. How this session is created depends upon how the backend is deployed. In most cases, it will be self-hosted as part of an on-premises deployment or through PrizmDoc Cloud services.

Once that session is created, PAS generates a new viewing session ID and passes it back to the application. All of this happens before any conversion or viewing begins, but the application can begin rendering to the HTML5 viewer by configuring it to use the viewing session ID. This brings up the viewing UI immediately, which will ultimately save time as the document is prepared.

The web application then uploads a copy of the source document to PAS, which can be in any number of formats supported by PrizmDoc Viewer. As soon as PAS receives the document, it begins handing off pages to PrizmDoc Server for conversion to SVG. Since pages are converted one at a time, PrizmDoc Viewer is able to open and view documents in the browser before the entire file is converted. That means less time is spent waiting around for large documents to be prepared for viewing.

As soon as the HTML5 viewer loads in the browser, it begins proxying requests to PAS through the web application for the first pages of content. Once the converted SVG content is available, PAS hands it back to the web application, which then passes it along to the HTML5 viewer, which displays that content in the browser. Additional pages are delivered as they’re ready, and the viewer may make subsequent requests as the user continues to interact with the document.

While the viewing process involves several steps, it is typically performed so quickly that the end user doesn’t experience any significant delays. Larger documents may take more time to render as SVG content, but even in these cases, PrizmDoc Server’s ability to render and deliver each page to the HTML5 viewer as it becomes available allows users to begin viewing documents within their browser right away.

Enhance Application Viewing Performance with PrizmDoc Viewer

As an API-based HTML5 viewing solution, PrizmDoc Viewer can be integrated into most web-based applications to support a broad range of file formats. Developers can use its annotation, redaction, document comparison, and conversion capabilities to deliver a full range of document management tools within their software platforms rather than having to build them from scratch.

To see how PrizmDoc Viewer will function in your application environment, sign up for a free evaluation trial. We provide ready-to-run Docker images in addition to installers for Windows and Linux. 

 

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document management bank

The COVID-19 crisis has permanently changed the way banks do business. While many financial firms were already shifting away from brick-and-mortar branches toward both mobile and digital alternatives, pervasive pandemic priorities required a rapid shift in physical presence — forcing companies to rapidly react with remote work alternatives.

Some — such as JPMorgan — were already prepping for potential shifts in early March, deploying a pilot project that saw 10% of its 125,000 employees working from home. Banks like BMO, meanwhile, have embraced the new normal. The company says that around 36,000 staff members may permanently split their time between home and corporate offices. 

While this focus on employee efficacy and engagement is critical, productive people aren’t the only element of remote work success. Security and speed are two of the qualities that consumers now expect across all key banking functions, and firms must prioritize digital processes that streamline these processes without compromising financial requirements. 

But what does this look like in practice? How do organizations handle document management, process automation, and employee collaboration at a distance — without breaking the bank?

Facing Financial Frustrations

When work-from-home went from “maybe” to mandate, Deutsche Bank found itself racing to keep up. With just a few thousand out of its 90,000-strong workforce already working remotely, the firm was under pressure to scale capabilities quickly — from reimbursing staff for device purchase to rolling out video conferencing tools for more than 50,000 employees in less than two weeks, the bank has been under pressure to deliver remote work processes that deliver both continuity and compliance.

With finance firms historically lagging on technology adoption, however, this presents a significant problem. While cloud-based communication and collaboration tools are now commonplace — and can be readily adapted to work-from-home environments — the tools and tech necessary to underpin key financial functions are often tied to in-house server stacks and legacy applications. 

This creates a digital disconnect. While staff may have access to corporate networks, many of the secure document management and financial processing solutions they need to complete day-to-day operations simply weren’t designed to operate at a distance. Security accounts for part of this separation — regulatory control is critical for banks to ensure client privacy — but many banks have also focused on familiarity over functionality, adopting a “good enough” approach to cumbersome, on-site applications. As a result, firms now face financial frustration across critical workflows, including:

  • Consumer Vetting — How do banks effectively evaluate potential client credit histories and financial foundations to deliver tailored service recommendations at a distance? Insecure credit or personal data access could have significant regulatory and legal repercussions.
  • Credit Approvals — Necessary credit checks require secure connections and the assurance that data won’t be subject to theft or man-in-the-middle attacks.
  • Loan Applications — Bank staff must complete complex forms at a distance and firms must ensure work-from-home employees have the tools they need to handle multiple file formats.
  • Account Management — Opening, closing, and modifying account information requires secure access and the ability to share key documents with specific data removed or redacted. Financial data shared outside secure workflows could result in compliance failures.

 

Solving for Scale

While many big banks are preparing partial return-to-work strategies or ramping up remote work solutions, smaller financial firms don’t have this luxury. The scale of large enterprises affords bigger budgets for IT management and deployment, giving them a deeper pool of resources to pull from when deciding how best to support staff and systems at a distance. From in-house IT teams capable of creating custom-built apps to legacy software solutions that can be updated to work with new collaboration tools, the scale of big banks offers a marked advantage.

For smaller financial firms with the bulk of their workforce already at home and a return to the office unlikely in the near future, fragmentation is the familiar framework. Many SMEs now use multiple document management applications to streamline key processes — but these apps don’t always work well together.

In the office, this doesn’t pose a significant problem — staff might lose time switching between software tools or moving data across digital divides — but at home, access and agility are both restricted. This becomes more complicated thanks to the rise of multi-cloud computing. While purpose-built cloud services empower small banks to keep pace with their enterprise counterparts, they introduce complexity as access points both multiply and diversify.

Driving Digital Dividends

To drive digital dividends at a distance, smaller banks are well-served by the implementation of advanced software development kits (SDKs) and application programming interfaces (APIs). These tools make it possible to integrate advanced functionality into existing apps without compromising the security of critical banking data. To deliver remote work potential, firms need SDKs capable of:

  • Collaboration — Integrate key collaboration functions including in-app document viewing to enhance data security, easy annotation and commenting options to ensure all staff are on the same page for multi-step application or approval processes, and burn-in redaction to enhance the protection of client or corporate data. 
  • Conversion — As complex, compliance-heavy processes such as loan applications, credit evaluations, and financial investments move to remote, on-demand models, banks need no-touch data processing that makes it possible to view multiple file types — including familiar Word and Excel files along with more specialized image formats — and convert these files to PDF documents for easy search. 
  • Capture — Automated data capture, field recognition, and forms processing not only reduce the amount of time staff spend creating new forms and completing current applications, they also reduce the risk of human error. Enable your team to take complete control of document management functions with powerful character recognition, scanned document cleanup, and form identification — all from within your own application.

The “new normal” for banking relies on digital services. Advanced SDKs and APIs make it possible for firms to succeed over both time and distance by delivering comprehensive collaboration, conversion, and data capture without breaking the bank.

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Question

I want to re-arrange the page order of a PDF. I’ve tried the following…

var page = imGearDocument.Pages[indx].Clone();

imGearDocument.Pages.RemoveAt(indx); //// Exception: "One or more pages are in use and could not be deleted."

imGearDocument.Pages.Insert(newIndx, page);

But an exception is thrown. Somehow, even though the page was cloned, the exception states that the page can’t be removed because it’s still in use.

What am I doing wrong here?

Answer

If you’re using an older version of ImageGear .NET, you may run into this exception when you clone the page. Some of the resources between the original and the clone are still shared, which is why this happens.

Starting with ImageGear .NET v24.8, this no longer happens, and the above code should work fine.

If you still need to use the earlier version, you can use the InsertPages method instead.

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Question

I encounter an Unhandled Exception error, as shown below, in ImageGear when trying to load a page into the recognition engine.

Error Message: An unhandled exception of type
‘ImageGear.Core.ImGearException’ occurred in ImageGear22.Core.dll

Additional information: IMG_DPI_WARN (0x4C711): Non-supported
resolution. Value1:0x4C711

What is causing this and how can I fix it?

Answer

This is probably because the original image used to create the page didn’t have a Resolution Unit set.

Resolution unit not set in original image

To fix this, check if the page has a Resolution Unit set. If it does not, set it to inches. You should also set the DPI of the image as those values were probably not carried over from the original image since the Resolution Unit wasn’t set. The following code demonstrates how to do this.

// Open file and load page.
using (var inStream = new FileStream(@"C:\Path\To\InputImage.jpg", FileMode.Open, FileAccess.Read, FileShare.Read))
{
    // Load first page.
    ImGearPage igPage = ImGearFileFormats.LoadPage(inStream, firstPage);

    if (igPage.DIB.ImageResolution.Units == ImGearResolutionUnits.NO_ABS)
    {
        igPage.DIB.ImageResolution.Units = ImGearResolutionUnits.INCHES;
        igPage.DIB.ImageResolution.XNumerator = 300;
        igPage.DIB.ImageResolution.XDenominator = 1;
        igPage.DIB.ImageResolution.YNumerator = 300;
        igPage.DIB.ImageResolution.YDenominator = 1;
    }

    using (var outStream = new FileStream(@"C:\Path\To\OutputImage.jpg", FileMode.OpenOrCreate, FileAccess.ReadWrite))
    {
        // Import the page into the recognition engine.
        using (ImGearRecPage recognitionPage = recognitionEngine.ImportPage((ImGearRasterPage)igPage))
        {
            // Preprocess the page.
            recognitionPage.Image.Preprocess();

            // Perform recognition.
            recognitionPage.Recognize();

            // Write the page to the output file.
            recognitionEngine.OutputManager.DirectTextFormat = ImGearRecDirectTextFormat.SimpleText;
            recognitionEngine.OutputManager.WriteDirectText(recognitionPage, outStream);
        }
    }
}
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Question

How do I remove XMP Data from my image using ImageGear .NET?

Answer

When removing XMP data in ImageGear, the simplest way to do this is to set the XMP Metadata node to null, like so:

ImGearSimplifiedMetadata.Initialize(); 
doc.Metadata.XMP = new ImGearXMPMetadataRoot();

Or, you can traverse through the metadata tree and remove each node from the tree:

// Example code. Not thoroughly tested
private static void RemoveXmp(ImGearMetadataTree tree)
{
ArrayList toRemove = new ArrayList();
foreach (ImGearMetadataNode node in tree.Children)
{
    if (node is ImGearMetadataTree)
        RemoveXmp((ImGearMetadataTree)node);

    if (node.Format != ImGearMetadataFormats.XMP)
        continue;

    toRemove.Add(node);
}

foreach (ImGearMetadataNode node in toRemove)
    tree.Children.Remove(node);
}
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Question

ImageGear .NET v24.6 added support for viewing PDF documents with XFA content. I’m using v24.8, and upon trying to open an XFA PDF, I get a SEHException for some reason…

SEHException

Why might this be happening?

Answer

One reason could be because you need to execute the following lines after initializing the PDF component, and prior to loading an XFA PDF:

// Allow opening of PDF documents that contain XFA form data.
IImGearFormat pdfFormat = ImGearFileFormats.Filters.Get(ImGearFormats.PDF);
pdfFormat.Parameters.GetByName("XFAAllowed").Value = true;

This will enable XFA PDFs to be opened by the ImageGear .NET toolkit.

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Question

How do I remove XMP Data from my image using ImageGear .NET?

Answer

When removing XMP data in ImageGear, the simplest way to do this is to set the XMP Metadata node to null, like so:

ImGearSimplifiedMetadata.Initialize(); 
doc.Metadata.XMP = new ImGearXMPMetadataRoot();

Or, you can traverse through the metadata tree and remove each node from the tree:

// Example code. Not thoroughly tested
private static void RemoveXmp(ImGearMetadataTree tree)
{
ArrayList toRemove = new ArrayList();
foreach (ImGearMetadataNode node in tree.Children)
{
    if (node is ImGearMetadataTree)
        RemoveXmp((ImGearMetadataTree)node);

    if (node.Format != ImGearMetadataFormats.XMP)
        continue;

    toRemove.Add(node);
}

foreach (ImGearMetadataNode node in toRemove)
    tree.Children.Remove(node);
}
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Question

In ImageGear, why am I running into AccessViolationExceptions when I run my application in parallel?

Answer

This issue can sometimes occur if ImGearPDF is being initialized earlier in the application. In order to use ImGearPDF in a multi-threaded program, it needs to be initialized on a per-thread basis. For example, if you have something like this:

ImGearPDF.Initialize();
Parallel.For(...)
{ 
    // OCR code
}
ImGearPDF.Terminate();

Change it to this:

Parallel.For(...)
{
    ImGearPDF.Initialize();
    // OCR code
    ImGearPDF.Terminate();
}

The same logic applies to other ImageGear classes, such as ImGearPage instances or the ImGearRecognition class – you should create one instance of each class per thread, rather than creating a single instance and accessing it across threads. In the case of the ImGearRecognition class, you’ll have to use the createUnique parameter to make that possible e.g.:

ImGearRecognition recEngine = ImGearRecognition(true);

instead of

ImGearRecognition recEngine = ImGearRecognition();
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