The first commercially successful film scanners (2000) are LASER scanners. The film is scanned with a point-shaped LASER beam and the intensity is measured at each point in time with a single-point sensor. A 40cmx30cm film can thus be digitized in approx. 120s with density D=4 and 2% contrast resolution.

In 2021, the first CCD line scanner appeared on the market which fulfilled ISO 14096. Similar to a photocopier, an entire line is exposed and read at the same time. The available device requires 1800 seconds for the 40cmx30cm film, but achieves 2% contrast resolution at a density of 4.5.

In 2023, the first area camera scanner was introduced; it based on area illumination (as from a light box) with an area camera that captures the entire film simultaneously. The 40cmx30cm film is captured in 30s up to a density of 4.5 with 2% contrast resolution.

The advantage of the area scanner lies in the amount of light per pixel; for the 40cmx30cm film with a pixel size of 50µm, the laser scanner exposes a pixel for only 1.2 µs, the line scanner for 9 ms, and the area scanner for 59 s. The area scanner receives 4 orders of magnitude more light per pixel and can therefore digitize with much less noise – if the technology allows it (not with a smartphone ).

Here is an example which illustrates the progress made by the area scanner:

The image of the Laser scanner (bottom) was taken from report "Evaluation of the LASER scanner Array 2905 HD," Dr. Uwe Zscherpel, BAM Berlin, September 2, 2003. The red numbers show the measured density with the scanners.

The high-pass filtered sections are taken from the same ASTM E 1936 test film; the quality of the area scanner (top) is limited by artifacts and granularity in the test film, while with the LASER scanner (bottom), it is the scanner itself that determines the achievable image quality. Additionally it is obvious, that the field with density D=4.58 is blurred in horizontal direction.

Today available NDT digitization systems acc. to ISO 14096 (slide from Dr. Uwe Zscherpel, BAM Berlin, Germany - 20 years after – revision of ISO 14096 DIR2025 Paris; July 2, 2025)