`3. Conversion

BENCHMARKING RESOLUTION REQUIREMENTS BASED ON STROKE WIDTH
The QI method was designed for printed text where character height represents the measure of detail. Manuscripts and other non-textual material representing distinct edge-based graphics, such as maps, sketches, and engravings, offer no equivalent fixed metric. For many such documents, a better representation of detail would be the width of the finest line, stroke, or marking that must be captured in the digital surrogate. To fully represent such a detail, at least 2 pixels should cover it. For example, an original with a stroke measuring 1/100 inch must be scanned at 200 dpi or greater to fully resolve its finest feature. For bitonal scanning, this requirement would be higher (say 3 pixels/feature) due to the potential for sampling errors and the thresholding to black and white pixels. A feature can often be detected at lower resolutions, on the order of 1 pixel/feature, but quality judgements come into play.

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Stroke: Adequately rendered cloud outline (left) and inadequately rendered border line (right).

Cornell has developed the following correlation of perceived image quality to pixel coverage:

Table: Quality Index for Stroke Rendering

This formula correlates QI with dpi and stroke width (w) measured in mm. QI in this case is based on the quality assessment above, which correlates to the number of pixels covering the stroke (e.g., 2 = excellent). Note: if the measurement of w is expressed in inches, omit the .039.

For bitonal scanning, the formula is adjusted to compensate for feature drop out in the thresholding process:

Many items falling into this category exhibit features beyond simple edge-based representation, and resolution will not be the sole determinant of image quality. For example, a number of institutions have recommended scanning all manuscripts in grayscale or color.

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