|
Subject: RE: Tech: Question - Scanners From: MMario Date: 08 Jan 03 - 02:35 PM Joe - have you checked out the tech support at Scansoft? from what I can see the Pagis Suite should work under XP. |
|
Subject: RE: Tech: Question - Scanners From: JohnInKansas Date: 08 Jan 03 - 02:48 PM Joe - The OmniPage software that's bundled with the Canon scanners should let you cut out part of a page to scan, but the normal method with most of the software I've seen is to "box" the area to be scanned - sort of like "cropping" a picture. Once you've scanned and run through OCR, you can select the text just as you would in Word - and I do like using TextBridge directly from Word. You just click on the OCR icon (put there by the TextBridge install) and tell it get what's laying on the scanner. The text appears in your Word document. Throw away anything you don't want after you get it as text. For working really close to the spine of a book, one possible "solution" is to use one of the "hand-held" scanners that some people get to go along with their laptops. You run the scanner over the page instead of putting the page on the scanner. Some of these will go to within a half inch or so of their "edge," and you can work with the book laid flat and right-side up - while you hold the other half of the book up to "flatten" what you're scanning. The main problem with these is that it's really tough to "piece together" anything over the 3 or 4 inch scan width. If you go for this as a "special purpose" tool, you'll probably still want a flatbed for most of your sca A few years ago there was somebody out there trying to sell a "scan pencil" that you ran along a single line of text - it supposedly pieced together the lines as text. I don't think it was too successful, but they may be still around somewhere. I'll look, but no promises. Any TWAIN compliant software will do most of what you want - but the scanner has to get you up against the binding to do it, if that's your concern. John |
|
Subject: RE: Tech: Question - Scanners From: JohnInKansas Date: 08 Jan 03 - 02:52 PM sorefingers - All those little squiggles are what you get when the OCR tries to turn the scan into text - and you can't spell "music" in plain text. You need to scan "as an image" without sending the image through the OCR software. John |
|
Subject: RE: Tech: Question - Scanners From: Joe Offer Date: 08 Jan 03 - 03:58 PM Hi, MMario - I checked the ScanSoft site, and they said that Pagis Scanning Suite did not support Windwos XP. Oh, I thought of another problem: My old scanner won't scan music scores very well. It omits all the score lines, apparently because they appear to be imperfections. It frustrates the hell out of me. -Joe Offer- |
|
Subject: RE: Tech: Question - Scanners From: Stilly River Sage Date: 08 Jan 03 - 04:52 PM Joe, I agree with John, you may want to stop trying to put the book on the scanner and instead put the scanner on the book. My Dad had an Amiga that he used for his music. I haven't unpacked it yet, and who knows what I'm going to find when I do. But a friend of his tells me that the Amiga was perfectly suited to music (though at this point in time and the age of that computer, I don't know what to tell you about saving data, speed, etc.). One of the things included in the box of stuff is a hand-held scanner. He spent a lot of time mulling over this (as a retired reference librarian, he's the last one you'd find mashing a book spine with a scanner cover). And for something completely different, you might want to look around and see what agencies or entities have big fancy scanners and figure out if you can work out something. Here at the Special Collections at my university we have a big scanner--an Agfa Duoscan T2000 XL that scans up to 4000dpi. It has a cover on a special expanding hinge that will allow for very thick volumes to be scanned. At the highest rate, a postage stamp might be scanned and would completely fill a CD. You probably only need to scan at 300dpi at the highest. With this Agfa scanner and Photoshop, you can get the kind of image that your other software can interpret. So perhaps you need to find someplace that will let you work out a deal. Volunteer to do scanning for a local library or museum, in exchange for some time scanning your own stuff. spend your money on high-end software instead of trying to buy the new scanner AND the software. Before you give up on the scanner and computer combination that you already have, visit the web site for the scanner manufacturer and download any upgrades they have made available for your machines. HP (as an example) has an excellent site for upgrading software to support its machines. I've gone in to get bits and pieces for various peripherals for my computer on several occasions. Just a thought. SRS |
|
Subject: RE: Tech: Question - Scanners From: GUEST,Q Date: 08 Jan 03 - 05:38 PM Mashing with a scanner cover? If the object has any thickness, remove the cover and substitute a large sheet of paper. I do it quite often. I also use a camera stand and camera quite a bit. I am thinking of getting a good digital camera. Then a scanner, overhead or flat bed, would not be needed. |
|
Subject: RE: Tech: Question - Scanners From: JohnInKansas Date: 08 Jan 03 - 06:01 PM Well Joe - I've just come from the PagisPro Suite pages at ScanSoft, and frankly it's a lot like visiting Microsoft. I can't tell what their product actually is. It appears to be a "suite" of software programs, but I can't tell what's in the box. It looks like they've got pieces of OmniPage Pro in the Pagis box. OmniPage Pro is what came with my Epson scanner, and it's very good for selecting what you're scanning and what "format" to scan it to. It includes a fair OCR capability, and will probably do most of what the PagisPro suite did for you. I believe that OmniPage Pro was part of the bundle with the Canon scanner you "selected" and with the alternate that I suggested. The Pagis suite also appears to have at least some pieces of TextBridge (which ScanSoft bought from IBM not too long ago), which is arguably the best OCR program for "plain text" conversion around. You may not get quite the OCR capability (in OmniPage alone) that you had in Pagis - if your Pagis version had a fairly complete TextBridge wedged in; but for most of what you're likely to do with it, the difference would be marginal. I'm sure someone will correct me if I'm wrong, but it looks like virtually everything that was in your PagisPro Suite comes in the box, under different names maybe, with the Canon scanners. (Although I'd still go for the Photoshop Elements that comes with the D1250U2F, as the replacement for the Pagis "Photosoap.") Other than the hood ornament and what note the horn's tuned to, you're not likely to find a scanner that's much better (or worse) than the Canon. I don't have a really good answer for scanning up to the spine in books, but you could look at: AmazonDotCom Pencil Scanners John |
|
Subject: RE: Tech: Question - Scanners From: JohnInKansas Date: 08 Jan 03 - 06:12 PM I took a quick look at some "handheld" scanners, but didn't really find much. If I hadn't screwed up the link, the end of my previous post would have included: HP Capshare 920 Portable E-Copier HP Capshare 920 Portable E-Copier Sells Out by Popular Demand Information The HP Capshare 920 e-copier has been discontinued and taken off the Hewlett-Packard current product list as of October 1, 2000. Evidently the "popular demand" cited by HP was a lynch mob???? I had a ScanSoft handheld back during an earlier geological epoch, and it was a real p. i. t. a. to get anything useful out of it. Something along that line might be useful for "special jobs," but you'd still want a good platform scanner for the majority of stuff. John |
|
Subject: RE: Tech: Question - Scanners From: Stilly River Sage Date: 08 Jan 03 - 08:58 PM FYI, the scanning done at UTA has a lot to do with maps. This is quite likely way off track where your scanning needs lie, but it's an interesting site to visit. There is also some interesting software involved for download to view images. If you visit Cartographic Connections at University of Texas @ Arlington Special Collections and click on a few maps you'll see what I mean. In particular, the Virtual Map Library. SRS |
|
Subject: RE: Tech: Question - Scanners From: Joe Offer Date: 03 Feb 03 - 05:34 PM Well, last night I solved my OCR problem quite nicely, and I really feel dumb. I discovered an icon on my computer called Microsoft Office Document Scanning, so I clicked on it to check it out. It asked me for my MS Word 2002 installation disk, and then installed itself. The resulting program works like a charm. You open the program, click "scan," and a nice image of the scanned page comes up. You highlight the text you want, and then right-click and select "copy as text." Then you go to Mudcat and paste the copied text into the message box, and there you have it. Exactly what I wanted - and I had it all the time. Oh, fer dumb. -Joe Offer- |
|
Subject: RE: Tech: Question - Scanners From: JohnInKansas Date: 04 Feb 03 - 06:28 AM Joe - You found something useful hidden in Office?????? Keep your mouth shut, or they'll take it out in the next release. Then it won't do what you use it for, but it'll be replaced by a whole bunch of other things that they just know you need - most of which involve spending lots of time at sites where they get paid for the commercials. (only slightly jesting) John |
|
Subject: RE: Tech: Question - Scanners From: Joe Offer Date: 07 Apr 06 - 02:33 PM Well, I bought a Canon LIDE scanner, and it has worked well-nigh perfectly. It gets its power from the USB cable, so I don't have to mess with a power supply. I also found that I have "Microsoft Office Document Scanning" on my computer (probably from MS Works Suite, since I don't have Office). It does an extraordinary job of OCR. But I still have a problem. Many of the books I scan from are fifty years old, and some are over a century old. Putting them on a flatbed scanner makes me cringe, because it's so hard on the bindings of these ancient books. I think what I need is a hand scanner, preferably a USB hand scanner. There used to be lots of them to choose from, but I haven't seen any for years. Anybody know of a good one I can get for a reasonable price - or have you other suggestions for scanning books? I wondered if I could get an OCR-able image from my digital camera.... -Joe- |
|
Subject: RE: Tech: Question - Scanners From: Stilly River Sage Date: 07 Apr 06 - 03:21 PM I have an old Amiga hand-held scanner, still haven't tried it even though I mentioned it ages ago on this thread. There are copiers that are made for the specialized kind of copying you want to do. We have a couple of them in Special Collections at the university library where I work. The glass is right to the edge of the machine so you do a half of the book at a time with the other half hanging down--the book is never open more than 90 degrees. Then there's this kind. Or you can find an automated scanner that is easy on the books. Probably not in your price range, but maybe someone in your area has one and will scan some pages for you? SRS |
|
Subject: RE: Tech: Question - Scanners From: JohnInKansas Date: 07 Apr 06 - 06:07 PM Joe - (I think I'm looking only at your recent questions) For text, TextBridge OCR can import any .jpg image file for conversion, so you can, at least in principle, use your digital camera and download the images to the computer. If you're saving in some other format, use any decent image editing program to convert to .jpg. I'm assuming that a different OCR program should have similar ability to open files from your computer, recognize them, and paste them into your wordprocesser program, and likely will use .jpg as the "native" program format. You may need to adjust for your OCR program's capabilities. You'll likely get the "flattest" image by setting the camera up square to the page a fair distance away. You get more distortion, and uneven focus across the with of the page, with a closeup. From a sufficient distance to wipe out the closeup distortion and get even focus across the page, you'll probably get the page and a fair amount of background. Most digital cameras now have more than enough pixels to take a shot saved at maximum (or "high" with a better camera than mine) resolution from a fair distance and crop off any "background," leaving what's in the middle (and fairly flat) with enough resolution for OCR when resized back to the original page size. With most bindings, the page you're taking the shot of will lay flattest with the opposing page raised a bit, so you may want to set up a way to support the "other side of the book" in a slightly elevated, and adjustable, position. If you use a tripod to support the camera, you may want the whole work surface tilted so it faces "square to the camera." Sharp focus on the page you want will help, and since lots of digital cameras "autofocus" using visble or near visible light, the page you're shooting should be fairly brightly lit, but with care to eliminate any glare. (You may have other means of focus control on your camera, but a fairly bright scene is needed for mine to home in accurately.) I'd suggest a "stand" or at least a tripod to setup your camera, and in any "fixed setup" you should use a cable release to avoid jarring the camera when you click, if your camera is equipped for one (mine isn't). OCR usually works better with low to moderate resolutions in the images being interpreted, so your photos, after cropping to page size should be resized so the image has about 150 dpi (or even a bit less) at the the original page size. It also helps, sometimes, to be sure that the final .jpg is B/W rather than color or grayscale. A camera is usually a bit less sensitive at picking up bleed-through of what's on the back side of the page, but it still may help to slip a sheet of colored paper under the page being copied. The color should be similar to the color of any text/markings on the back side of the page, so usually black is the color. You may be able to use your camera's flash, but since "facing the page squarely" is fairly critical for best results, it may produce too much reflected glare - in which case you'll want other fairly bright lighting. It's the filetype that matters, so far as your OCR program should be concerned, so you can scan a newspaper page and save it as .jpg to get an image you can use to figure out how to get your OCR program to import "files from disk" and put them in your text editor/wp program. Note - I've had some success with photo-to-OCR, but my camera demands brighter lighting for sharp focus than I've had for my jury-rig experiments. You may need to build yourself a good setup with a flat place to lay the book, support for the "other side" of the book, some added light, and a stand/tripod to get the camera in consistent position, in order to get really good results. And learn to push the shutter button slowly enough to let the camera autofocus home in. Since you will probably need to do some processing on your camera images, your setup can be "one-sided." A 180 degree rotation of an image is lossless, so if you take a picture "upside down" your photo editor can turn it around with no effect on the image quality. (Rotations of anything except in 90 degree increments does (theoretically) induce a minor amount of "blur," but you'd have difficulty finding it in most photo images.) Hand-scanners have all but disappeared from the market. The only ones who may use them are people who "live out of their laptop," and most of them rely on "the company they're visiting" to provide scanning. My experience with one back when Win95 was "modern" was not impressive, although current ones should be more usable - but are rare and much more expensive. The library/archive scanner setups I've seen are very expensive - starting at around $3,000 for a minimal setup. The are -in essence - just a digital camera with an enormous focal plane shutter, and expensive dedicated software. Your camera, with a careful setup, can simulate, but probably not equal, what they can do; but you probably can get results that will satisfy your needs. You'll need to verify that your OCR can import files from disk for reading. Verify that .jpg files work or find what other format can be used. Take careful pictures, and do a bit of processing. You'll soon (wry grin) have everything archived digitally. And do make your "capture" setup "user friendly." Leaning over an awkwardly place scanner - or camera or book setup - can do horrrrible things to the backsides of ol' farts like us, especially if it's repetitive for long sessions. John |
|
Subject: RE: Tech: Question - Scanners From: Stilly River Sage Date: 07 Apr 06 - 06:22 PM A friend of mine has used Text Bridge and swears by it. SRS |
|
Subject: RE: Tech: Question - Scanners From: George Seto - af221@chebucto.ns.ca Date: 07 Apr 06 - 06:33 PM Try Looking at one of the Planon Docupens They look pretty handy. |
|
Subject: RE: Tech: Question - Scanners From: JudyB Date: 08 Apr 06 - 09:35 AM The Docupens do look useful - has anyone here actually tried them? |
|
Subject: RE: Tech: Question - Scanners From: JohnInKansas Date: 22 Apr 06 - 01:48 AM Several people commented about how nice it would be to have a "portable scanner," and some "remembered" seeing "pen scanners." The problem with those has been that they essentially scan one character at a time, and rather precise aiming and moving over the text being scanned is required. They'r also virtually useless for anything other than text. A product review at Planon DocuPen RC800, Review Date: 04.11.06, PCMagazine, proposes that there is something new. This pen scanner doesn't follow the line, it rolls sideways down the page so that it reads a "page width" at a time, and eliminates some of the tracking difficulties with typical pen scanners. It reportedly can save scans of multiple (up to 100?) pages in gray-scale, but only has enough memory for a couple of full color pages; but it just might be able to pick up some of those "difficult" scans – like up against the binding in old books(?). The unit comes with 8 MB RAM, but you reportedly can install larger memory packs. I assume that the device is intended primarily for capturing text, but the reviewer does say that it does a "credible" job on full color photos. Capturing images may require careful "sweeps" of the thing, but appears possible. Oh yeah, - - - $300 US, which is a bit "pricey" but - if it solves a problem.... John |
|
Subject: RE: Tech: Question - Scanners From: JohnInKansas Date: 23 Apr 06 - 02:26 PM |
| Share Thread: |
