AIAXact Customized Integrated Book Scanners are made from inter-changeable components.  The systems are designed for extremely rare and fragile books and bound documents in situations which require maximum protection for books, and demand exact high resolution scanning and color accuracy.  These systems differ from scanning workstations offered on this site in two ways: 1.    by integrating off-the-shelf technologies, our R&D costs have been dramatically slashed--thus savings are passed on to the end user; 2.   modular flexibility allows AIA to fit systems to meet a variety of price points, be easily customized, and be used for other types of scanning by simply removing the book cradle and substituting other accessories such as light boxes for transparency scanning, extensions for larger sized flat art, and vacuum easels and magnetic boards.   AIAXact Book Scanners take various components (lenses, cameras, lights, copy stands) add a digital scan back and a book cradle, and mimic a photographic workflow.  The design intent is to favor image quality, color accuracy, flexibility, and control over fast throughput.  Book scanning machines are set up to maximize throughput and scan heads may be adjusted to run faster, creating the possibility of nosier images. These book scanning machines rely heavily on software to manipulate the original data to improve its appearance. The AIAXact systems use a  photographic workflow. They are slower than the book scanning machines, but produce exquisite images with no software manipulation.  Any "fixes"  (like curvature) must be photographically corrected before the scanning (e.g., using glass to hold a page flat so there is no curve, or increasing the depth of field to hold focus).  But, book scanning software is available as an option on any system.  Arguably, when speed is NOT the only criteria, these systems produce better images at ultra high resolutions, produce more accurate color reproduction, and lend themselves to the careful process of handling rare and fragile books.