3D Fax

3D Fax was an early Windows program from InfoImaging Technologies. It allowed binary files to be transmitted via fax. Basically, the software would encode the file into a printed image to be sent to the recipient's fax machine. The recipient would then scan the transmitted image and use 3D Fax to decode it back to its original binary form.

Its functionality was limited. Although being able to send a binary file via fax is a novel idea, it has three main problems:

• The size of the binary file is limited to what is possible to encode on a letter-sized piece of paper, so sending anything over 50 kb would require many sheets of paper to print, fax, and scan.
• The sending party requires an adequate printer and a fax machine or fax-modem, and the receiving party requires a scanner and fax (although a fax-modem on both sides would eliminate the printer and scanner requirements). Both also need access to a phone line, to send their fax.
• Most binary files need 100% reliability on the transport. If the binary file is an executable, for example, it needs to be decoded perfectly by the receiving party, or the file simply won't work. This is usually impossible with normal fax transmissions, since they normally have noise and are not 100% copies of the originals. Adding a scan to the process only worsens matters.

The advent of an almost ubiquitous Internet, along with email, made the limited usefulness of this software obsolete.