Does anyone have a recommendation for good low volume large format scanner?
My solution may not be what you had in mind: a small-format scanner and a pair of scissors.
30 pages or so of E Size plans would take a while. To be clear, we don't need it very often; however, we may run several sheets when we do. If a print shop with these capabilities were closer, we would not consider the purchase.
What I do is lay the plans on the floor and stand directly over them to take a picture with my phone. Leaning on desk or something helps to stabilize the image. Then I crop and convert the image to a PDF. With some practice they usually turn out pretty good. I'm not sure if that will serve your purpose but it is a lot cheaper than a scanner.
We have done just that in a pinch with varying degrees of success. However, you have me thinking that maybe we just need to standardize our process with proper lighting and a camera stand to get more consistent results. Definitely will give that a try.
I would get a quote from large format scanning services and post them off.
When I have had stuff scanned it has not been all that cheap.
I have tried the photo method and the scan and digital stitching.
It's quite time consuming the scaling needs checking and the white areas can be greyish.
I have scanned split pairs of documents and stitched them using Microsoft ICE. Free download
The drawings were 6 feet long.
bridge
When something large comes thru that needs scanned I will take it to a local copy shop and get scanned to PDF for no more than $2 each or if a colleague is not that busy go by his office and he will scan most anything if he gets a copy too.
