TWAIN

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For other uses, see Twain.

TWAIN is a free and open software protocol and applications programming interface (API) standard that regulates communication between software applications and imaging devices such as scanners and digital cameras.

The word TWAIN is from Rudyard Kipling's "The Ballad of East and West" — "...and never the twain shall meet..." — reflecting the difficulty at the time of connecting scanners and personal computers. It was up-cased to TWAIN to make it more distinctive.

The word TWAIN is not an official acronym; however, it is widely known as "Technology Without an Interesting Name."[1]

Contents

[edit] History

The TWAIN group originally launched in 1992 by leading industry vendors who recognized a need for more communication between the image handling software and hardware. Today the TWAIN standard, including the specification, data source manager and sample code, are maintained by the TWAIN Working Group.

[edit] Vision statement

The TWAIN Working Group is a not-for-profit organization which represents the imaging industry. TWAIN's purpose is to provide and foster a universal public standard which links applications and image acquisition devices. The ongoing mission of the organization is to continue to enhance the standard to accommodate future technologies. The latest released version of the TWAIN standard is 1.9 (January 20, 2001) while 2.0 is going to be released soon.

[edit] Objectives

Objectives of the TWAIN Working Group and standard include:

  • Ensure image-handling software and hardware compatibility
  • Keep the specification current with the state of practice software and hardware while maintaining backward compatibility
  • Multiple platform support
  • Maintain and distribute a no-charge developer's toolkit
  • Ensure ease of implementation
  • Encourage widespread adoption

[edit] Milestones

Since the initial 1.0 release, TWAIN has been dramatically enhanced to fully support:

[edit] The TWAIN Working Group Board

Member companies include:

[edit] The TWAIN Associate Members

Member companies include:

[edit] TWAIN membership

TWAIN is a not-for-profit association of industry leaders who have gathered to create a standard that benefits the industry as a whole. If you would like information on joining the TWAIN Working Group, visit their website at the URL listed below.

[edit] External links

This article was originally based on material from the Free On-line Dictionary of Computing, which is licensed under the GFDL.