Automated BookScanner - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: granterpower1311
author_rank: Newbie
timestamp: March 09, 2016, 02:55:18 am
content: After many prototypes, I made an automated bookscanner for consumers.www.bookscan.caCheck it outany feedback greatly appreciated!Some questionsWhat is your first reaction?Do you know what the bookscanner is doing?

author: Ian.M
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 09, 2016, 03:24:05 am
content: Why?If the book isn't valuable, simply cut off the binding and feed the resulting stack of loose pages through a scanner with an ADF. This is likely to give the best scan quality for the least effort. If required it can be re-bound with a glued binding like a a paperback with very little loss of gutter edge, which is well within the capabilities of an amateur bookbinder or many copy shops. If it is valuable, nobody in their right mind would trust a mechanical page turner, so its open it to 95 deg in a book rest under a frame supporting two cameras + flashes + suitable task lighting to minimise the handling, and turn the pages manually, with a foot operated switch for flash & shutter release, followed by a lot of image post-processing to sort out the geometric distortions due to parallax and the curvature of the page near the spine.

author: Bud
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 09, 2016, 05:15:01 am
content: I very much dislike videos/ads made in fast fade in-fade out snippets manner. Too short to really assess what is on the screen. Many movies ads are made in this manner.

author: Back2Volts
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: March 27, 2016, 12:36:36 am
content: The 1970s movie "The three days of the condor" with Robert Redford had a machine at the CIA flipping/filming the pages of a book.

author: edy
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 27, 2016, 06:18:45 am
content: Well it certainly is an interesting build. I'm not sure how practical it is, but the engineering that needed to go in to something like this must have taken some time. You've got the arm that moves back and forth with a "sticky" block to flip the pages, then you have a camera taking photos that has to somehow angle itself to properly read the pages and correct for it. To be fully automated, does the software process the images and chop them out properly, assembling everything and making some kind of PDF file or a directory full of numbered images?There are some major issues I think that will always hamper scanning a book that is intact. For example, near the center binding the pages will often be curved and the text will tend to get distorted. Even more so in thicker books. Glossy books will also be difficult to scan with a flash-based photo.You are much better off sawing off the binding to end up with flat pages and then use an autofeed scanner that flips pages, if you don't mind destroying the book (at least the bound version). You will still retain the original book but will need to bind it again some other way.I wish you luck in your Crowd-Funding endeavour. I'm just not so sure what the market is for something like this, but it is a clever bunch of engineering and software required to do it. Perhaps there are other uses, like scanning rare older books or something that requires a more delicate touch? Perhaps that niche may be better suited... like museums or rare book collectors or in libraries?Most books I need today are available as PDF directly from the publisher or a digital download from somewhere. I have a few old books laying around from 1920's with that old brown paper and very nicely put together leather binding that looks like art. It might be nice to scan it, and I would probably just flip through the pages manually and take photos and stitch them all up together later in a PDF.... that's if I actually cared about the content more than the antique quality of the physical book. The information is all old anyways and out of date (it is a medical book). Any of my old rare classical literature is now available digitally anyways so if all I care about is the text I can find it.So you see the dilemma. Most of the books I have that are worth scanning for the content, I can get a digital version of anyways these days. The rarer books that don't exist digitally I would rather keep the original anyways and I may not be particularly interested in the content as it is likely too out of date to be relevant. However, having a digital copy would prevent the original physical book from being handled. So this again sounds like it would be great for museums or libaries or people who have rare older books that they don't want destroyed by over-use but still wish to enjoy the content or to share it with others without further damage to the book.Good luck and let us know when you start the campaign. It would be nice to get some statistics on how long it actually takes to do each page, or a time-lapse video showing an entire book being scanned with a timer.

author: TheAmmoniacal
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: March 27, 2016, 06:38:39 am
content: That thing looks stupid, at least this thing looks usefulhttps://www.indiegogo.com/projects/czur-scanner-build-your-own-digital-library#/

author: edy
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 27, 2016, 01:13:46 pm
content: Quote from: TheAmmoniacal on March 27, 2016, 06:38:39 amI made something like this out of my digital camera, mounted on a rig pointing down, some bright lighting and a remote shutter control. Once I had all my photos saved I created PDF's as needed. It was very fast too... and cost me nothing.

author: zapta
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 28, 2016, 12:06:03 am
content: Very creating design. I like it. How do you keep the pages in place, is there a fan above?