Aware, Inc. has a demonstration server online with sample images from various collections. Contact Mike Serafino (+1-781-687-0336) for a username/password.

Aware, Inc. (NASDAQ:AWRE), a global provider of imaging and biometrics software, today [May 16, 2005] announced that it will demonstrate its comprehensive suite of biometrics software tools in its booth at the Electronic Passport Forum, held May 18-19, 2005 in Berlin, Germany. The software is designed specifically for e-passport enrollment, personalization, and reader systems, providing key functionality such as face and fingerprint image analysis and optimization, image compression, file formatting, and robust file transport. ...

Aware’s PreFace™ software performs facial image analysis and optimization to help ensure compliance with ISO/IEC biometric facial image standards. Aware’s ICAOPack™ provides several tools required for e-passport systems, such as software to read, write, edit, and validate biometric files according to the ICAO LDS e-passport standard and all relevant ISO/IEC biometric data interchange standards, including CBEFF. ICAOPack also includes JPEG2000 and JPEG for facial image compression, and WSQ for fingerprint image compression, as well as Aware’s QualityCheck software for fingerprint image quality scoring.

Listed below are images from offered by the Library of Congress Music Division for experimentation. Included are both lossless compression and lossy compression J2K versions of the sample images, with perhaps another variation in having the images sharpened using NIK-Sharpen Pro. The TIFFs are also available to show folks just what a pain it would be do deal with the originals.

The first collection of images comes from the Federal Theatre Project. These images were captured at a high resolution because the source materials were literally disintegrating, and a very good copy was needed. The "LC j2k FedTheatreProj test.pdf" file outlines why digital and JPEG 2000 was the best way to go.

The University of Connecticut Archives & Special Collections at the Thomas J. Dodd Research Center was awarded $40,000 by the Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation in December 2001 to clean and make accessible a series of hand-written but subsequently water-damaged cards produced by the poet Charles Olson during his effort to transcribe the marginalia in hundreds of books owned by Herman Melville. The renovated cards are scanned at a resolution of 600 DPI, then encoded into JP2 files and bundled with an Encoded Archival Description (EAD) XML box, TEI Lite XML box, and a PDF UUID box. Using Aware's toolkit, the images are delivered to the user's web browser through a server-side transformation to JPEGs.