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As I recall, someone had built a machine that turned the pages and took pictures of the pages. I think they were refining it, as it just snapped both facing pag

by KGIII 9y ago

As I recall, someone had built a machine that turned the pages and took pictures of the pages. I think they were refining it, as it just snapped both facing pages at once, and were going to market it. I never did find out what happened to that project. The work was being shared in one of the alt.bin. newsgroups and they had written a few blurbs about their machine. This predates the popularity of crowdfunding, I don't know if that would have helped. I do seem to recall them mentioning some interest from libraries or archival services but I have no idea what happened. Maybe someone here knows the rest of the story? I do have some older manuscripts, including some old mathematics works. I should see if there is a project to digitize them. I'd be happy with digital copies as I don't have a material attachment to the books themselves - I don't think. (I may, I've never really been faced with sending them out to someone.) So, I'd be not too incensed if the process was destructive or if the books weren't returned.

polm23 9y ago
You might be remembering the Ion Audio Saver, which was inexpensive (<200) and included a clear sheet to hold the book at a natural open angle. It ended up canceled; the few shipped prototypes were OK, but the camera was low quality and hand issues with mounting angles. https://www.amazon.com/forum/kindle?_encoding=UTF8&cdForum=Fx1D7SY3BVSESG&cdPage=1&cdSort=newest&cdThread=Tx1D5K0J6DEQNAN https://www.amazon.com/forum/kindle?_encoding=UTF8&cdForum=F...
- KGIII 9y ago
  Quite similar, methinks. The other was much older (in Internet years). If I had to guess at a date, I can say I think it was in the 1998 to 2003 region. I can't be more accurate than a five year span, my memory isn't that good. It was a rig that was made with a metal frame. You could adjust the height of the camera and it had a light attached to it in the pictures. It turned the pages automatically but would sometimes crumple the pages. I believe the eventual product was to be able to use any camera that supported remote triggering? There was the little tripod mount screw welded onto what looked like aluminum tube framing. That held the camera and it was adjustable for different book heights and widths. (I am trying to give as many details as I can, as it may trigger a memory better than my own.) I recall some discussion on the lighting and they were using fluorescent lights that hit the same spectrum as the Sun. There was some discussion on using different spectrums. I do also recollect them discussing OCR and that it was difficult to do on the images and not very accurate unless it were a more modern book with a common typeset. I really wish I'd more info. It was a neat sounding project and the guy built it himself as well as worked on the OCR software - though I'm not sure they ever got the OCR working properly.
  - polm23 9y ago
    I have no idea what you're talking about then, but there's a community of people who build scanners now. Some of them might remember it. https://www.diybookscanner.org/ https://www.diybookscanner.org/
db48x 9y ago
That's basically how the Internet Archive does it: https://archive.org/details/tabletopscribesystem https://archive.org/details/tabletopscribesystem

by KGIII 9y ago

polm23 9y ago

You might be remembering the Ion Audio Saver, which was inexpensive (<200) and included a clear sheet to hold the book at a natural open angle. It ended up canceled; the few shipped prototypes were OK, but the camera was low quality and hand issues with mounting angles. https://www.amazon.com/forum/kindle?_encoding=UTF8&cdForum=Fx1D7SY3BVSESG&cdPage=1&cdSort=newest&cdThread=Tx1D5K0J6DEQNAN https://www.amazon.com/forum/kindle?_encoding=UTF8&cdForum=F...

KGIII 9y ago
Quite similar, methinks. The other was much older (in Internet years). If I had to guess at a date, I can say I think it was in the 1998 to 2003 region. I can't be more accurate than a five year span, my memory isn't that good. It was a rig that was made with a metal frame. You could adjust the height of the camera and it had a light attached to it in the pictures. It turned the pages automatically but would sometimes crumple the pages. I believe the eventual product was to be able to use any camera that supported remote triggering? There was the little tripod mount screw welded onto what looked like aluminum tube framing. That held the camera and it was adjustable for different book heights and widths. (I am trying to give as many details as I can, as it may trigger a memory better than my own.) I recall some discussion on the lighting and they were using fluorescent lights that hit the same spectrum as the Sun. There was some discussion on using different spectrums. I do also recollect them discussing OCR and that it was difficult to do on the images and not very accurate unless it were a more modern book with a common typeset. I really wish I'd more info. It was a neat sounding project and the guy built it himself as well as worked on the OCR software - though I'm not sure they ever got the OCR working properly.
- polm23 9y ago
  I have no idea what you're talking about then, but there's a community of people who build scanners now. Some of them might remember it. https://www.diybookscanner.org/ https://www.diybookscanner.org/

db48x 9y ago

That's basically how the Internet Archive does it: https://archive.org/details/tabletopscribesystem https://archive.org/details/tabletopscribesystem