AI Crop vs AutoCrop
Definitions
AutoCrop is a Capture One CH feature from an earlier effort (by Capture One A/S) to automate cropping and straightening. This tool was based on basic computer vision methods (aka shape finding) and has not been updated since 2017.
AI Crop is a DT Nexus feature developed by Digital Transitions to automate cropping and straightening. This tool uses a modern AI model to "see" the nature of the materials in the frame, and generate rules-based crops around them. It is under active development.
AI Crop is also, confusingly, the name of a feature within the Crop tool of Capture One Studio (aka Capture One Enterprise) which is designed for e-commerce product shooting. This feature is not intended for heritage digitization and will perform erratically in that context.
Feature Difference: DT Nexus vs Capture One
Compared to AutoCrop in Capture One CH, you can expect the following improvements by using AI Crop in DT Nexus:
- Better facing-pages handling
- Supports 180º capture (e.g. DT Versa)
- Supports ~100º capture (e.g. DT BC100, or book wedge)
- Gutter-aware Page Splitting
- Option to ignore fanning/cover (e.g. page only for OCR)
- Better film handling
- Supports image_area or slide
- Provides a variety of tools to refine the expected size and/or aspect ratio
- Dedicated tools for cropping contact sheets, neg sleeves, and slide sheets
- Better target handling
- Targets can be optionally included in the crop
- Targets can be ignored even when close to main subject
- Target-Only mode to quickly isolate targets for QC analysis
- Improved reporting
- Color tags can be disabled if being used for other purposes
- Add to Album as alterantive to color tags
- Improved straightening
- Higher angle precision
- Straightening anchored to object, not target
- Straighten to text content
- Gutter-based straightening
- Improved padding options
- Asymmetric padding
- Padding in pixels, percent of diagonal, or percent of side
- Gutter-specific padding
- More robust
- Better detection of low-contrast subject matter (e.g. light materials on a light background)
- Ignores distracting content in frame such as:
- Black gutter area above/below subject on DT Versa
- Machine components on DT V Cradle
- Reflections in DT BC100 glass
- Ignores subject shadows
Becuase AI Crop is still under active development new features, modes, and improvements are expected in coming years.
Where AutoCrop is still preferred
There are a few use cases where AutoCrop is a better option.
- AutoCrop in C1 is faster, because of its simpler shape finding approach. If your material is high contrast (e.g. white paper on black background), simple in nature (e.g. clear rectangular paper), and you do not need any of the advanced features of AI Crop like aysmmetric padding, target inclusion, or multiple object detection, then you can use AutoCrop for faster cropping
- AI Crop is a feature of DT Nexus which is currently only available for Mac, so Windows users will need to use AutoCrop