View Add/Edit Patient Images screen. View Video, 1 min. 43 sec.

Installing Your TWAIN Devices Into Diamond Dental Software
Your TWAIN compliant image acquisition devices (such as scanners) should come with its own bundle of software. Included with this bundle should be the TWAIN driver for that device. This should be installed according to the directions included with the device. To load these TWAIN drivers into Diamond Dental Software, you will need to access the Add/Edit Patient Images screen. Click the Settings button (crossed hammer and wrench). After this is clicked the Default Image Settings screen will appear. From here click the Scanner Settings button.

The Default Image Settings Screen
The Default Image Settings screen will link you to the individual setup screens for scanners, digital cameras and intra-oral cameras. In this section we are concerned with the three settings buttons for scanners, digital cameras, and intra-oral cameras. The Default Image Settings screen also has several other controls that will be discussed later in this section.

Scanner Setup
From the Default Image Settings screen click the Scanner Settings button to open the TWAIN Scanner Settings. The Select TWAIN Scanner Device drop down list contains a list of all the TWAIN devices loaded on your machine. Select the one for your scanner. The TWAIN Scanner Settings screen sets the default scanner for Diamond Dental Software. Once set you will not have to do this again unless you want to change your default scanner.

Scanner Compression Setting: None, JPEG or PNG
When Diamond Dental Software imports an image from your scanner, it will import one of three image compression types: None (which is a bitmap file),  JPEG, or PNG file. The “None” or bitmap setting will have the best image quality because it is saved with no compression. The drawback is that the bitmap will also be the largest of the three file types. The JPEG (pronounced “jay-peg”) is the most compressed and therefore the smallest file but also of lesser quality than the bitmap. The PNG compression type is unique in that it uses what is called “lossless” compression. Lossless refers to the fact that PNG images do not lose quality when they are compressed. So PNGs are as good a quality as bitmaps which use no compression, but they do not compress as significantly as JPEGs. A major disadvantage for PNGs is that they are slower to use than JPEGs and may give the imaging program an undesirable sluggishness. While any one image will not take up much room on your hard drive, over the years with hundreds or even thousands of images accumulating, space considerations become more important. Although an image saved as a bitmap will be the best possible quality, it can easily be several times larger than the same image saved as a JPEG. Does this mean that a bitmap will be several times better looking than a JPEG? Not necessarily. In fact, when viewed on screen it may be hard to distinguish a difference between the two images. There is a difference and it’s more apparent on some images than others, but JPEGs look very good and they are significantly smaller than their bitmap counterparts. PNGs will compress down smaller than bitmaps but not as much as JPEGs. PNGs will compress better for grayscale images than for color images, but again, we have noticed a sluggishness that makes them less desirable.