What is a repro stand or copy stand scanner? Two solutions for how to scan 3-dimensional objects, practical and professional.

Suggestions for recommended scanner for maps, other GIS needs, rare books, paintings for fine art giclee: FLAAR uses the Cruse scanner

Reprographic stand scanner for museums, universities, or prepress

We spent several years checking out reprographic stand systems at tradeshows throughout the USA, England, and Germany. The overhead scanner we settled on was the Cruse, from Cruse GmbH, Germany.

Cruse has a long and successful history in making top of the line professional photography equipment. In Mexico I saw one of the original "Cruse cameras." The system consisted of two entire rooms in a successful photo lab. As of last year they were still producing large format darkroom prints with this system. It had all the quality you would expect from a German engineer.

For the last few years Cruse GmbH has moved to digital cameras which function as overhead reprographic stand scanners. This is the ultimate digital copy stand.

The one we have can scan or photograph anything up to about two inches thick, at a size 36 by 48 inches. You can get larger models if you wish.

This professional equipment is not for home or weekend use. This is a top of the line, state of the art digital copy stand. It's built like a Mack truck and is considered the Rolls Royce of turnkey reprographic stands.

Cruse scanners are being used at the Beethoven Museum, Bonn, Transfertex (textile producers), Landeskriminalamt Hessen (Wiesbaden, Germany), Polizeipraesidium Frankfurt, and at the Dr. Marthin Luther Universitaet, Halle (where FLAAR had an office for several years before moving to Cologne).

FLAAR now has a Cruse scanner. It will be used to scan fossils for the geology department on campus, indigenous textiles and basketry for ethnographic research of FLAAR (this acronym stands for Foundation for Latin American Anthropological Research), as well as scanning art for the art department, maps for the geography department etc.

If you need to photograph a lot of maps, rare books; if you are a police department in any large city or populous state; if you are a museum or university, or a community college with a generous state legislature, then this is the ultimate digital equipment. Having an item of equipment such as this makes you #1 rather quickly in whatever digital imaging projects you undertake.

If you are a library or otherwise need to scan rare books or manuscripts, also check out the newest Cruse equipment, their book scanner, System CS 145B450. The first installation is in the Staatsbibliothek in Prag.

If you would like to download the FLAAR edition of the operator's manual for the Cruse, check out FLAAR Premium Report Series on Fine Art Giclee

Hermann-A Cruse is the inventor and engineer who holds the patent for the innovative synchron lighting system. Contact him at Cruse GmbH, Digital Imaging Equipment, Segerstr. 9, D-53359 Rheinhach, Tel +49 (0)2226 91 25 75, fax +49 (0)2226 7487.

Managing Director of the Cruse Digital Equipment company in the USA is Mike Lind (tel:) (281) 492-2714 / Fax: (281) 492-0307,malind@msn.com . For additional information you can contact Michael A. Lind, Reprographic Designs,Tel (281) 492-2714, fax (281) 492-0307, e-mail malind@msn.com

At trade shows we have seen attempts to knock off cheaper copies. We have seen home-made repro scanners. You can find "systems" made of pieces from diverse sources (never originally designed to work with each other). What we like about the Cruse system is that the entire machine is designed to function in unison. If it is "made in Germany" you can trust it won't be jerry-rigged.

Here at Bowling Green State University we do scanning for the local museums, local library, for the art students. They are very content with the quality. We have the model CS 155SL. This produces a 450 MB file size over a 92 x 122 cm area (36 by 48 inches if my math is right). Within a few months we intend to update to the Cruse CS 185ST, the "Synchron Table" for fine art scanning.


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