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A
Report
on
Rainbow Technology
By
Angad kumar singh
Dept:IT
Roll no:16900213009
A report submitted in partial fulfillment of the
requirements of
IT681: Seminar
3 may 2016
Department of Information Technology
Academy of Technology
Aedconagar, Hooghly – 712121
Academy of Technology

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CERTIFICATE BY THE SUPERVISOR
Prof. Amitava Nag
Head of the Dept.,
Dept. of IT
Academy of Technology
Aedconagar
Hooghly – 712121
This is to certify that the Technical Report entitled ……………………
is a document of work done by ……………., …………, ……………..,
and …………….. under my supervison during the period January
2016 to May 2016.
___________________________
<Signature of the supervisor >

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STATEMENT BY THE CANDIDATE
Roll-16900213009
B. Tech 6th Semester
Dept. of Information Technology
Academy of Technology
I hereby state that the Technical Report entitled Rainbow
Technology has been prepared by us to fulfil the requirements of
IT 681 during the period January 2016 to May 2016.
_________________________
<Signature of the student>

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ACKNOWLGEDEMENT
"I have taken efforts in this project. However, it would not have been
possible without the kind support and help of and constant supervision as
well as for providing necessary information regarding the topic & also for
their support in completing the report.
I would like to express my gratitude towards my parents & member of
Academy of Technology for their kind co-operation and encouragement
which help me in completion of this report many individuals and
organizations.I would like to extend my sincere thanks to all of them.
I am highly indebted to Prof. Mamata Dutta for their guidance,I would
like to express my special gratitude and thanks to Prof. Amitava Nag for
giving me chance to express my ideas and views.
My thanks and appreciations also go to my colleague in developing the
report and people who have willingly helped me out with their abilities."
Angad kumar singh

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Abstract
Rainbow technology,a breakthrough in digital data storage enables us to
store up to a massive 450GB on just a piece of paper. Rainbow Storage is a
group of techniques to store digital data in some colors, color combinations
and some symbols known as rainbow format, and therefore a rainbow
picture will be generated.
The technique is used to achieve high-density storage. With the help of
Rainbow system we would be watching full-length high definition videos
from a piece of paper! The main attraction is the cheap paper.
The Rainbow technology is feasible because printed text, readable by the
human eye is a very wasteful use of the potential capacity of paper to store
data. By printing the data encoded in a denser way much higher capacities
can be achieved. Paper is, of course, bio-degradable, unlike CDs or DVDs.
And sheets of paper also cost a fraction of the cost of a CD or DVD. This
boon to digital data storage is developed by Sainul Abideen, university
technology student at the Muslim educational society Engineering College
in Kerala.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS
 Certificate by supervisor 1
 Statement by candidate 2
 Acknowledgement 3
 Abstract 4
 List of figures 7
 Introduction 8
 How to read rainbow prints? 10
 Implementation Requirements 11
 Principles Used
 Principle I
 Principle II
 Process of Storing Data 12
 Conversion Procedures 14
 Level-1 Data to Data Pictures
 Level-2 Data Picture to Data
 Software Implementation 16
 Encoding from audio signal into gray scale image
 Why to use paper? 17
 Comparison with others devices 18
 Applications 19
 Advantages 20
 Disadvantages 21
 Future scope 22
 Conclusion 23
 Bibliography 24

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LIST OF FIGURES
1.1 Data stored in rainbow format on an ordinary paper.
1.2 Machine operation to store the data.
2.1 Rainbow card.
3.1 Discs can now be developed from plastic paper to which will
be able to hold 450 GB of data.
4.1 Representation of data from a file to Rainbow format.
4.2 Storing the data in Rainbow Format.
6.1 Scanned gray scale image.bmp.
8.1 CD, DVDs a thing of past.

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1.INTRODUCTION
It uses geometric shapes such as squares and hexagons to represent data
patterns, instead of the usual binary method that uses ones and zeros to
represent data. Besides, color is also used in the Rainbow system, to
represent other data elements. Files such as text, images, sounds and video
clips are encoded in “Rainbow format” as colored circles, triangles, squares
and so on, and printed as dense graphics on paper at a density of 2.7 G per
square inch. An RVD therefore looks like a print-out of the modern art.
Fig 1.1: Data stored in rainbow format on an ordinary paper.
The paper can them be read through a specially developed scanner and the
contents decoded into their originals digital format and viewed or played.
The Rainbow technology is feasible because printed text, readable by the
human eye is a very wasteful use of the potential capacity of the paper to
store data. By printing the data encoded in a denser way much higher
capacities can be achieved. The retrieval of data is done by scanning the
paper or the plastic sheet containing the data into a scanner and later
reading it over monitor.

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Instead of using 0s and 1s, we use color dots where each color dot can
represent minimum 8 bits (1 byte).The rainbow picture will be highly
compressed and can be represented in any color medium. For retrieving the
contents from the medium, picture can be captured and data can be
generated from the color combinations. ”Although environmental light
differences and color shading is a problem, it can overcome up to a certain
limit by using efficient mapping functions”.
Fig 1.2: Machine operation to store the data.
The main attraction is the cheap paper. The Rainbow technology is feasible
because printed text, readable by the human eyes does not make optimal
use of the potential capacity of paper to store data. By printing the data
encoded in a denser way much higher capacities can be achieved.

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2. HOW TO READ RAINBOW PRINTS?
In order to read the rainbow prints, all that is required is a scanner and
specialized software. Smaller scanners could fit inside laptop computers or
mobile phones, and read SIM card-sized RVD‟s containing 5GB of data.
Fig 2.1 : Rainbow card.
The recording media could be either paper or plastic sheets. The piece
of paper or even plastic sheet storing the data has just to be scanned in the
scanner and read over the monitor. A scanning drive based on the rainbow
software has simultaneously been developed which will come in smaller
sizes to be initially carried with the laptops and later to fit into their bodies.
The developer is simultaneously molding the technology into ‟Rainbow
cards‟ which will be of SIM card size and store 5GB equivalent to three films
of DVD quality.
As „Rainbow Cards‟ will become popular, rainbow card reader
will replace CD drives of mobile phone and computer notebooks and will

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enable more data in portable forms for mini digital readers. Large scale
manufacture of the rainbow card will bring down its cost to just 50 paisa.
3. Implementation Requirements
3.1 Principles Used
The technology is based on two principles:
3.1.1 Principle I
“Every colour or colour combinations can be converted in to some values
and from the values the colours or colour combinations can be
regenerated”.
3.1.2 Principle II
“Every different colour or colour combinations will produce different
values”.

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Fig 3.1: Discs can now be developed from plastic paper to which will
be able to hold 450 GB of data.
4. Process of Storing Data
Printing at 1,200 dots per inch (DPI) leads to a theoretical maximum of
1,440,000 colored dots per square inch. If a scanner can reliably
distinguish between 256 unique colors (thus encoding one byte per dot),
the maximum possible storage is approximately 140 mega bytes for a
sheet of A4 paper-much lower when the necessary error correction is
employed. If the scanner were able to accurately distinguish between
16,777,216 colors (24 bits, or 3 bytes per dot), the capacity would triple,
but it still falls well below the media stories’ calms of several hundred
gigabytes.
Printing this quantity of unique colors would require specialized
equipment to generate many spot colours. The process model used by
most printers provides only 4 colours, with additional colours simulated
by a halftone pattern.
At least one of three things must be true for the claim to be valid:
 The paper must be printed and scanned at a much higher
resolution than 1,200 DPI.

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 The printer and scanner must be able to accurately produce and
distinguish between an extraordinary numbers of distinct colour
values.
 The compression scheme must be a revolutionary lossless
compression algorithm.
Fig 4.1 : Representation of data from a file to Rainbow format.
If Rainbow’s “geometric” algorithm is to be encoded and decoded by a
computer, it would equally viable to store the compressed data on a
conventional disk rather than printing it to paper or other non-digital
medium.
Printing something as dots on a page rather than bits on disks will not
change the underlying compression ratio, so a losses compression
algorithm that could store 250 gigabytes within a few hundred
megabytes of data would be revolutionary indeed.
Likewise, data can be compresses with
any algorithm and subsequently printed to a paper as coloured dots. The
amount of data that a can be reliably stored on this way is limited by the
printer and scanner, as described above.

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Fig 4.2 :Storing the data in Rainbow Format.

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5. Conversion Procedures
The following steps are used to convert the original data to be data detected
by the rainbow devices.
5.1. Level-1 Data to Data Pictures
Data to Data picture conversion takes place in four steps. A chuck of data
bits are taken from data source (Normally Binary Files), which is known as
a word. The size of the word can vary according to the nature of writers,
readers and storage mediums. The word can be converted into a value that
will be unique for each different combination of bits.
Thus a picture will be generated by representing values
as colors. The value then passes through some error checking mechanisms.
After producing some error correction bits, it will attach to the data picture.
Header, Picture Bounder Mapper (PBM) (for keeping track of the boundary
of data picture), universal Picture Dot (a static value that is used for
mapping errors that occurred due to colour fading), etc will be attached to
the picture. Thus the final output (Data picture) will be generated. Now the
original data is encoded into Data Picture and it can be now printed in any
printable media.
5.2. Level-2 Data Picture to Data
Data Picture to data conversion uses just the reverse process. Data Picture
is taken as an input and the parameters like UPD, PBM, etc are read from
the header. The actual data is generated by picture to value conversion.
Some image processing methods are used for this stage. Value mapping
functions are used for mapping the arrangements done on actual data.
Some errors that occur due to colour fading can also be handled
at this stage. The values are passed through some error correction
mechanisms. Fault tolerance and automatic repair is also performed at this
stage. Then the value to word conversion takes place. The encoded data
picture is hence decoded into results data which will be the original.

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The paper can then be read through a specially developed scanner and the
contents decoded into their original digital format and viewed or played.
The Rainbow technology is feasible because printed text that can be read by
the human.
Eye does not make optimal use of the potential capacity of
paper to store data. By printing the data encoded in a denser way higher
capacities can be achieved. The retrieval of data is done by scanning the
paper or the plastic sheet containing.
The data into a scanner and later reading it over the monitor. Instead of
using 0s and 1s, we use colour dots where each colour dot can represent
minimum 8 bits (1 byte). The rainbow picture will be highly compressed
and can be represented in any colour medium. For retrieving the contents
from the medium, picture can be captured and data can be generated from
the colour combinations.
”Although environment light differences and colour shading is a problem,
they can be overcome up to a certain limit by using efficient mapping
functions.”
In order to read the rainbow prints, all that is required is a scanner and
specialized software. Smaller scanner could fit inside laptop computers or
mobile phones, and read SIM card sized RVDs containing 5GB of data. The
recording media could be either paper or plastic sheets.
The piece of paper or even plastic sheet storing the data has
just to be scanned in the scanner and read over the monitor. A scanning
drive based on the Rainbow software has simultaneously been developed
which will come in smaller sizes to be initially carried with the laptops and
later to fit into their bodies. The technology has used geometric shapes like
circles, squares and triangles for computing which combine with various
colours and preserve the data in images. An RVD therefore looks like a
print out of the modern art. All kinds of data have to be first converted into
a common format called „Rainbow Format‟.

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6. Software Implementation
Storing an audio file and text file on paper in a form of image. We
will take print out of this paper and by scanning it we can retrieve the data
stored on paper back. Representing data in the form of black and white
image is basic step, but here we have discussed conversion in to gray scale
image directly as it leads to smaller image size and more compression.
6.1. Encoding from audio signal into gray scale image
We will initially read „audio‟ file to get sampled values of audio files which
will be between -1 and 1. Now converted this value between 0 to 1. To
overcome limitations of normal printer and scanner we replicated each
sampled value two times, this will control error till some extent. To obtain
proper image we will convert this array into matrix with aspects ratio 4:3.
Like this we have successfully created image whose pixel values are
between 0 to 255 which corresponds to range 0 to 1.
After that print out of this image is taken. The first image
shown below represents image obtained after conversion of audio file and
second image represents scanned image which can be used to reconstruct
audio file.
Fig 6.1: Scanned gray scale image.bmp.
In decoding part scanned gray scale image is converted back into audio file.
We will select desired area of paper and read content of selected area. This
matrix of aspect ratio 4:3 is converted into array. Now take average of two
successive pixels to get actual value of pixel.

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7. Why to use paper?
 Biodegradable-The biggest advantage of this technology would be the
biodegradable nature of this storage device which would do away the
e-waste pollution.
 Cost- This is also one of the big advantages since cost paper is very
low compared to current data storage devices.
 Duplication- It is not quite as easy to copy an optical disk. This
drawback can be resolved by paper storage which can easily duplicate
data using Xeroxes etc.
 Data transfer-Data stored on paper can be send to remote places
easily via fax.
 Speed-These devices are faster than current storage devices.
 Size-size is smaller than that of actual data.
 Security-security of signal can be increased.

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8. Comparison with other storage devices
Fig 8.1: CD, DVDs a thing of past.
Currently, of the several options available for data storage, DVDs are the
best mode, but are yet expensive. Sianul Abideen has said that a CD or
DVD consumes 16 gms of polycarbonate, which is a petroleum by-product.
While a CD costs of Rs 15/-,his paper or plastic-made RVD will cost just Rs
1.50 and will even have 131 times more storage capacity. Using this
technology an A4 sheet of paper could store 256 GB of data. In comparison,
a DVD can store 4.7 GB of data.
Paper is, of course, bio-degradable, unlike CDs or DVDs, and sheets of
paper also cost a fraction of the cost of a CD or DVDs.

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9. Applications
 It can be used for faster audio transfer over the internet with much
less interference.
 Morphing can be implementing to modify vocal information.
 It can be used in identification systems.
 As it is said earlier that we are going to implementing it for audio
and text file, it can also be developed for storing video files, images
and any other data.
 It can be used for faster audio transfer over the internet with much
less interference.
 It is more confidential than any other storage device.
 It can be used in identification systems.

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10. Advantages
 Files in any format like movie files, songs, images, text can be
stored using this technology.
 Its bio-degradable nature of the storage devices would do away with
the e-waste pollution.
 The four main storage devices made using this technology are RVD,
Disposable storage, Data Banks, Rainbow cards and answer to the
storage problems faced by the computer world.
 With the help of disposable storage, a high density data storage is
made possible even on paper or plastic sheets, any type of
computer files can be stored and distributed this way, so instead of
giving CDs with the computer magazines, its content can be printed
in a page, video albums, software etc and can be distributed at a
very low cost with the help of disposable storage.
 Rainbow card can be used in mobile devices in place of DVDs and
VCDs. In a square inch sized rainbow cards, (equivalent to the size
of sim card) more than 5 GB data can be stored. A major crisis
faced in the design of the small digital devices is the huge size of
the DVD/CD drives.
The rainbow cards can solve this problem. Un-
authorized copies of the films can be controlled to a certain limits
using these cards. A UK based company has already evinced
interest in making rainbow card.
 Un-authorized copies of the films can be controlled to a certain
limit using these cards.

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11. Disadvantages
 The paper has the tendency to fade away hence the data loss may
occur.
 With the extremely low cost of using this technology we can always
afford to have multiple copies.

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12. Future scope
 The developer is simultaneously moulding the technology into
'Rainbow Cards' which will be of SIM card size and store 5 GB of
data equivalent to three films of DVD quality.
 As 'Rainbow Cards' will become Popular, Rainbow Card Readers
will replace CD drives of mobile phone and computer notebooks.
 Large scale manufacture of the Rainbow card will bring down its
cost to just 50 paise.

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13. Conclusion
 Once the Rainbow technology is in, soon we could be watching full-
length high definition videos from a piece of paper! With the
popularity of the Rainbow Technology, computer or fashion
magazines in future need not carry CDs in pack.
 One of the major advantages of the rainbow system is the fact that
it should cost a lot less to produce than the typical polycarbonate
DVDs, CDs and now Blu-rays. Huge data banks can be constructed
out of Rainbow-Based storage medium.

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14. Bibliography
 Rainbow Technology Decidedly Nurtures Storage Trends
International Journal of Technology and Engineering System
(IJTES) c gopalax-Publisher of International Journals.
 Color Coded Cryptography International Journal of Scientific
and Engineering Research, Volume 3, Issue 7, July-2012 1
ISSN 2229-5518 IJSER c 2012.
 "Data Can Now Be Stored on Paper" by M. A. Siraj, Arab
News (published November 18, 2006; accessed November 29,
2006)
 Sadik C. Esener, Mark H. Kryder, William D. Doyle, Marvin
Keshner, Masud Mansuripur, David A Thompson, International
Technology Research Intitute, “WTEC Panel on the future of Data
Storage Technologies.”
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