Clip Definition - ClipHelper Interface

Your solution program can use the ClipHelper interface to provide the same level of control available in the ScanTools Plus application definition. This offers more flexibility and options for the clip’s destination; to a file, memory stream, or IClip object for display as a standard Windows Picture object. ClipHelper provides a ClipAttributes structure that gives you full control in defining clips.

The advantages include:

• Clip location can be anywhere on the sheet, not limited to OMR coordinates. This is especially useful for forms with timing marks. The units of measure available are in inches or millimeters. See ClipHelper.ClipCoordinateSpace property.
• Uncompressed clips available, using no compression. See ClipHelper.CompressionMethod property.
• Clips can be assigned unique numeric IDs. See ClipHelper.Tag property and Clip.Tag Property.

Using ClipHelper and ClipAttributes allows you the ability to store clip definitions in an outside source like a database table, an XML file, and populate ClipHelper ClipAttributes from your user-defined and supplied source.

An example of this method is in the sample Scanning Utility program provided with ScanTools Plus Link SDK, the clips are defined and taken by ClipHelper and are shown in the left-hand window of the Scanning Utility screen. Notice that these clips have a background and are rotated.

NOTE: For languages that cannot handle a structure, ClipHelper also has the following methods available that provide the same functionality as the ClipAttributes structure:

• ClipHelper.GetClip3 method
• ClipHelper.GetClip4 method
• ClipHelper.WriteClipToFile3 method