Imaging Toolkit lets applications perform the imaging process by only making function calls. The API version of Imaging Toolkit consists of 16 functions. Depending on your application, some functions may not be necessary. Imaging Toolkit supports profile names and file names that can contain ISO-8859-1 characters.
To start the imaging process, create a profile, and then receive the scanned image.
A profile describes scan job parameters such as the contrast, depth, duplex, orientation, resolution, size, and type. The profile also determines where the scanned image is sent using an IP address and a TCP port number.
As part of creating a profile, a socket must be created to listen for a connection on the TCP port specified by the profile.
When selecting the profile on the printer control panel, the printer connects to the socket and sends the images, along with metadata. Metadata is not part of the actual image data, but is an information used as a communication tool between the printer and the computer.
For example, when scanning more than one page in a format that does not allow multiple pages, the printer sends each page as a separate file. Each file contains metadata that says that the file is complete, and another file is starting. When the printer is done sending the images, it closes the connection and the process is complete.