PC Magazine – 26th September 1995

3D Fax Professional Teaches Old Fax Machines New Tricks

By Jonathan K. Matzkin

A new fax utility from InfoImaging Technologies can teach your fax card and standalone fax machine some pretty amazing new tricks. The $199 3D Fax Professional allows file transfer via fax card, either to other fax-card-equipped PCs or to standalone fax machines. The software compresses and encodes any file as a pattern of black and white dots called an InfoImage. Then 3D Fax Pro invokes your fax software and fires off the InfoImages (see inset).

Sending InfoImages saves transmission time. A complex, nine-page Microsoft Word document took a little over 17 minutes to transmit unencoded to a standalone fax at 9,600 bits per second (bps). The same file, compressed to a three-page InfoImage, took less than 10 minutes to arrive at the same fax machine. And unlike the conventional fax, the InfoImage arrived in editable form (once decoded) and with color attributes intact. A 180K .EXE file transmitted in about 32 minutes and ran fine when decoded.

Fax Professor: 3D Fax Professional gives your old fax machine new life.

If you send the file to a fax card, the receiving system uses 3D Fax Pro’s read module to decode the file. Encoded files are unintelligible, even if printed out or viewed with graphics software. And for an extra level of protection, you can password protect the encoded InfoImage. If the InfoImage is received by a standalone fax machine, you scan it into 3D Fax Pro’s read module using any Twain-compliant scanner.

3D Fax Pro allows simple, convenient transfer of files via fax, which many users find less difficult than standard data-modem file transfers. A less-capable “standard” version is available; you can download a limited, freeware version at http://www.infoimaging.com.

Article from PC Magazine – 26th September 1995