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recommendations for book scanners?
Posted by: Mr Downtown
Date: November 19, 2022 10:55AM
I'm very interested in a portable book scanner that would let me scan obscure government reports and maps while visiting libraries and archives. I've been using Scanner Pro on my iPhone, but I'd like to step up my game a bit.

I've been looking at the Aura series from CZUR but there are a lot of models, some of which can be found as open-box items on eBay. Does anyone have experience with such things?
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Re: recommendations for book scanners?
Posted by: davemchine
Date: November 19, 2022 11:14AM
Great topic and I'm eager to see what you come up with. I did try to solve this problem 40 years ago, sent off my money, but it hasn't arrived yet.





Ukulele music I couldn't find anywhere else.
[colquhoun.info]
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Re: recommendations for book scanners?
Posted by: mattkime
Date: November 19, 2022 11:42AM
I wonder if there's an app that works particularly well. The main challenge is turning the 3d shape of the page into a 2d image. This challenge would be roughly the same for the device you linked to an an iphone.



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Re: recommendations for book scanners?
Posted by: Todd's keyboard
Date: November 19, 2022 12:19PM
In 2018, I purchased a CZUR Aura through an Indiegogo campaign. I think it was the first model offered. A friend had a closetful of ephemera concerning a non-profit we worked at in the late seventies and early eighties.

I arranged to have the scanner sent directly to my friend. A technophobe, it sat in his office for several years. While he kept inviting me to fly down to spend some time with him and start digitizing, Covid kept me in Canada.

Last year, he made arrangements to donate his collection to a museum. I convinced him to scan everything before sending it off so I could have a digital copy. (I've been maintaining a public web site about the history of the organization.)

A third friend (also not that technically savvy, came over to his house, and the two of them spent a couple of days scanning hundreds of documents. After couple of Zoom chats with me (They didn't want to read the manual.), they were able to start scanning.

At the end of the process, my friend saw a use for the scanner for him and his wife, and offered to buy it from me.

I then bought a more-recent Aura scanner for myself, but lent it to my brother-in-law before I had a chance to use it. His mother had just passed, and he had come out to Vancouver to take all the family photos and documents back to Calgary with him.

Todd's maybe-someday kb
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Re: recommendations for book scanners?
Posted by: wurm
Date: November 19, 2022 12:37PM
Quote
davemchine
Great topic and I'm eager to see what you come up with. I did try to solve this problem 40 years ago, sent off my money, but it hasn't arrived yet.


Hey, I bought one of those. And it did arrive. I even recall taking a few pictures with it. It was always especially fun bringing that tiny film roll to the store to get processed. smiling smiley
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Re: recommendations for book scanners?
Posted by: anonymouse1
Date: November 19, 2022 01:21PM
Recommendations to skim:

[www.digitalcameraworld.com]

[bonafidebookworm.com]


I like my sheet feed Fujitsu scanner, so:
[www.zdnet.com]
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Re: recommendations for book scanners?
Posted by: NewtonMP2100
Date: November 19, 2022 02:06PM
.....the HP Capshare is perfect for scanner stuff from library, as long as black & white (no color).....you can also print to certain HP printers (wireless) and connect to laptops (certain laptops......no longer made but I had one.....somewhere....


.....but most stuff can be done using camera on cell phones now.....


this is the HP Capshare..........?!



_____________________________________

I reject your reality and substitute my own!
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Re: recommendations for book scanners?
Posted by: davemchine
Date: November 19, 2022 02:41PM
I decided to try a low budget solution as an experiment. I've already got an iPhone with a great camera and I've already go Scanner Pro mentioned above. I took an amazon box and cut out a hole on top for the camera and flashlight and made a pdf document of the first six pages of a book. It came out pretty good! You can see the results here [colquhoun.info]

Things that would make it better:
1. A black background would make it easier for Scanner Pro to detect page edges. Easy enough with kids craft supplies.
2. The hole for the camera and flashlight should be different. A hole in the center would work well for smaller books but larger books would probably require two hole positions. I'd have to experiment.
3. The camera height needs to be increased from 8.5" to 13.5". This would allow for a page width of 10" which should accommodate larger books.
4. If the rest of the interior where white I suspect the lighting would appear more even.
5. Box width should be increased from 13" to around 22" to accommodate big books.

Edit: I should add that I like using LEADTOOLS OCR on my Mac to OCR documents.
Edit2: An apple (for eating) box lid is already white on the outside and it's 21x13.25" which is darn close to what I said was needed. Assemble it inside out to get the white interior.






Ukulele music I couldn't find anywhere else.
[colquhoun.info]



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 11/19/2022 03:30PM by davemchine.
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Re: recommendations for book scanners?
Posted by: Mr Downtown
Date: November 19, 2022 05:42PM
As I say, I've been using Scanner Pro on my iPhone for such projects, but I've found it a bit clumsy. I bought a gooseneck clamp to hold the phone in position above the library table, but my neck tires after about 50 pages of looking straight down. The auto edge detection works well enough, but the auto shutter as I turn the pages is too often premature, catching my hand in the image. I bought a remote shutter for my iPhone—but it turns out Scanner Pro doesn't support those!

As noted in the Amazon reviews, the HP Capshare—taking several minutes per page—really is an artifact from the pre-smartphone early 2000s.
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Re: recommendations for book scanners?
Posted by: mrbigstuff
Date: November 19, 2022 08:48PM
I've always wanted a good scanner of this type but I'm guessing that the market has dried up in terms of need and number of people searching for one. Still, I'm surprised that no company has taken it on to develop a quality product; I'm sure that they would dominate the (admittedly small) market.



And a pony in the river turning blue...
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