The software platform seamlessly integrates handwritten mark-ups on printed plans, maps, notebooks, and forms with standard business applications.

Companies that have a substantial field force often find that field employees reject current computing technology in favor of tried and true paper forms, documents, maps, and charts. This white paper explores the problem and provides an affordable solution based on software solutions for digital pen and paper, which provides rapid end user adoption and a significant return on investment.

Why do they still use paper?

Field personnel need the right tools for both the job and the job site, whether they are working in an underground tunnel or high up in a cherry picker. Digital tools that provide many benefits in an office environment, may have the opposite effect in the field. To accommodate these tools, field personnel may have to make substantial changes to their established work flows and productivity.

Workers are often reluctant to bring expensive electronic devices into dirty or hazardous environments. Tablets are heavy, expensive, and get in the way. They have limited battery life and screens that are difficult to see in bright sun. And they require extra attention, which means that workers have less time for the job at hand. The small size of a PDA greatly limits spatial perspective, and places its own substantial cognitive load on users, resulting in dramatic increases in help calls (ref.) When faced with such inadequate technological options, it is not surprising that field personnel naturally revert to what they
know best – pen and paper.

Field workers choose paper and pen because the tools are:

• Familiar and easy to use
• Suitable for field conditions
• Support opportunistic face to face collaboration
• Quick to deploy (no boot time)
• Don’t fail
• Provide high-resolution images on a large or small scale
• Inexpensive, lightweight, portable, and predictable

However, despite all of the advantages of pen and paper, the written data must somehow be converted to digital form. And with standard pen and paper, that means manual data entry, which reduces the efficiency of the information system and greatly increases the risk of error.

How can you get the best of both worlds?

Solutions for Digital Pen and Paper

Adapx, Inc. has developed a line of products that are uniquely suited to improving information management in field conditions—we call it Capturx™. Our Capturx is a uniquely mobile computing product—it treats paper as a computing device. As field personnel write on digitally-imprinted paper, the information is captured with a digital pen. The data stored in the pen is then uploaded to a computer through a portable docking station.

On the computer, Capturx software processes pen strokes, so that each is registered to the location and content of any digital document, such as a map, satellite photo, or journal page. Essentially, any paper-based business practice can be digitized using Adapx’ digital pen, digitally-imprinted paper, and software.

How does it work?

Documents are printed on ordinary paper using Capturx software. During the process, the software converts the paper to digital paper by imprinting a pattern of tiny black dots, called the Anoto pattern™.

As a field worker writes on the digital paper with Adapx’ digital Penx™, infrared light from the pen illuminates the dot pattern, which is picked up by a tiny sensor. The pen decodes the dot pattern as the pen moves across the paper and stores the data using a StrongArm processor, 1 MB of memory, and a rechargeable lithiumion battery. In addition, the Adapx Penx uses a Rite-in-the-Rain™ waterproof ink cartridge for all weather operation.

The pattern is comprised of a tiny grid, with dots offset from the intersecting grid lines north, south, east, or west. Because the dots are printed in a carbon black ink that reflects infrared light, the sensor in the pen records the dots, but not the other colors printed on the page. The pen has a field of view of 7 square millimeters. Therefore with 1200 dots per inch, the pen can see 336 dots horizontally and vertically, or about 113,000 dots at a time. Each dot can be in one of four positions, so the pattern can encode a huge space of possible locations on a page.

To give you an idea of the size of the available pattern, at 1200 dots per inch:

• The pattern would cover an area about the size of Europe and Asia combined or 60,000,000 km2
• It would cover 960 quadrillion sheets of A4 paper—960,000,000,000,000,000 sheets
• .000000001% of the available pattern (100,095 sheets of A4) would cover one U.S. football field

With this unique encoding of dots, the pen can read a location on a page within 0.2mm, and identify precisely which page it is. As the pen moves across the page, it stores the X-Y locations of the pen tip. The data is then uploaded to a computer running Capturx’ software via the Dox docking station, and the software uses the stored coordinates to reproduce the writing or sketches in a new document or an existing file, such as a drawing or map.

What does Capturx do?

Adapx Capturx software interprets handwritten data from the field, and then integrates it with documents, images and drawings running on platforms you already use. Capturx extends a number of major software applications, such as Microsoft Office OneNote, ArcGIS, and AutoCAD.