kindle, lego, bookscanning and the analog hole

Built a scanner? Started to build a scanner? Record your progress here. Doesn't need to be a whole scanner - triggers and other parts are fine. Commercial scanners are fine too.

Moderator: peterZ

Post Reply
victoriaaustralia
Posts: 55
Joined: 07 Nov 2011, 16:22
E-book readers owned: newton
Number of books owned: 2
Country: Australia
Location: Castlemaine, Victoria, Australia

kindle, lego, bookscanning and the analog hole

Post by victoriaaustralia »

This is a short article and video about an associate professor at the Vienna University of Technology who has a short video on how he uses a lego mindstorm kit to advance pages on a kindle while his computer photographs each page:

http://allthingsd.com/20130906/how-a-ma ... -security/

http://vimeo.com/73675285
Freeware Windows workflow in 2020
viewtopic.php?f=19&t=3620
shesgottageek
Posts: 10
Joined: 07 Sep 2010, 08:19

Re: kindle, lego, bookscanning and the analog hole

Post by shesgottageek »

Pretty interesting, thanks for sharing!
User avatar
daniel_reetz
Posts: 2812
Joined: 03 Jun 2009, 13:56
E-book readers owned: Used to have a PRS-500
Number of books owned: 600
Country: United States
Contact:

Re: kindle, lego, bookscanning and the analog hole

Post by daniel_reetz »

Way back when I gave my talk at the Berkman Center at Harvard, Benjamin Mako Hill came up with this same idea. Basically, put a webcam over a Kindle, and have a drinking bird press the page forward button. Bam! All ebook DRM, useless.
victoriaaustralia
Posts: 55
Joined: 07 Nov 2011, 16:22
E-book readers owned: newton
Number of books owned: 2
Country: Australia
Location: Castlemaine, Victoria, Australia

Re: kindle, lego, bookscanning and the analog hole

Post by victoriaaustralia »

This is an automated solution however any bookscanner design will do the same with manual pressing of the page forward button. I imagine the kindle ePaper takes a decent photograph, the LCD screen ebook readers may be more fiddly to achieve a good photograph of.
Freeware Windows workflow in 2020
viewtopic.php?f=19&t=3620
victoriaaustralia
Posts: 55
Joined: 07 Nov 2011, 16:22
E-book readers owned: newton
Number of books owned: 2
Country: Australia
Location: Castlemaine, Victoria, Australia

Re: kindle, lego, bookscanning and the analog hole

Post by victoriaaustralia »

This is an interesting suggestion from a Slashdot reader on the Kindle/Lego scanner - perhaps it also has some relevance for the 5x7card reader question:

One day I was looking at a pile of papers from school I was thinking about saving digitally and recycling. But I didn't have a scanner, and I sure wasn't about to go buy one. But I did have a printer. So I used some DOS command to print a blank document, and I put my papers in the feed. And then I had a Canon camera which I aimed at the output of the printer. I then wrote a script that would print, and then sleep, and then take a picture. The only trouble was that it took about 30 seconds to get everything situated. And at that rate, it would probably take 2 years to scan all that I had. So ultimately, I threw away those papers.

http://hardware.slashdot.org/story/13/0 ... mindstorms
Freeware Windows workflow in 2020
viewtopic.php?f=19&t=3620
trader-tx
Posts: 2
Joined: 14 Aug 2013, 15:43
E-book readers owned: calibre, Kindle for PC
Number of books owned: 1000
Country: USA

Re: kindle, lego, bookscanning and the analog hole

Post by trader-tx »

.
This is not intended as criticism of the previous described approaches to capturing ebook images off the feature-crippled Kindle device. Typically such strategies evolve after the equipment choices (or whatever's available) have already been made.

There is a far easier way to capture the ebook pages -- without using a camera at all, and you don't even need the handheld Kindle device at all. In fact, it's a handicap.

Instead, assuming you have a PC, download the free "Kindle for PC" software and install that. (There's probably a Mac equivalent, but that's not part of my world.) Every time you pull up your library of paid-for Kindle ebooks (assuming you're broadband connected), you can view, and page through, all the pages of that ebook on your monitor. But you're still missing another piece of the puzzle.

Download the free version of Gadwin PrintScreen (looks like version 4.6 at this moment) from http://www.gadwin.com/download/

Install and set it up to place screen captures (of either your full screen, or whatever lesser rectangular area you choose) in the folder of your choice, and with the file series name you choose. You can also check-mark the program to sequentially number each screenshot it takes. Set it to capture those screenshots in .jpg format, and designate some easy to reach key on your keyboard as the trigger. It helps to slap some garish colored sticker above that key so you can easily remember and find it. I would suggest the standard "Print Screen / SysRq" key. Test out your setup to make sure you didn't make one or more typos during the setup process. If all is well, then delete your test shots, and fire up your Kindle.

Once the ebook of choice is on screen, then (to minimize the number of pages you'll have to capture) enlarge the margins to the maximum possible. Then using one finger to advance the ebook pages, and a different finger to capture your well-named and sequentially numbered .jpg screenshots, you can copy the entire ebook typically in about a minute.

Again, no camera required, both pieces of software (the "Kindle for PC" and the Gadwin PrintScreen version) are free, and the process once setup correctly is lightning fast (well, depending on how speedy your fingers are).

Now you can view those screenshots in order with virtually any image viewer you have handy -- no online or wifi connection needed.

Then you can decide at your leisure if you want to generate a single printable, archivable PDF from those sequential .jpg screenshots, and possibly keep the original screenshots as is -- in case you might care to share a page or two with someone via email, for example.

Yours,
trader-tx

.
User avatar
daniel_reetz
Posts: 2812
Joined: 03 Jun 2009, 13:56
E-book readers owned: Used to have a PRS-500
Number of books owned: 600
Country: United States
Contact:

Re: kindle, lego, bookscanning and the analog hole

Post by daniel_reetz »

victoriaaustralia wrote:This is an interesting suggestion from a Slashdot reader on the Kindle/Lego scanner - perhaps it also has some relevance for the 5x7card reader question:

One day I was looking at a pile of papers from school I was thinking about saving digitally and recycling. But I didn't have a scanner, and I sure wasn't about to go buy one. But I did have a printer. So I used some DOS command to print a blank document, and I put my papers in the feed. And then I had a Canon camera which I aimed at the output of the printer. I then wrote a script that would print, and then sleep, and then take a picture. The only trouble was that it took about 30 seconds to get everything situated. And at that rate, it would probably take 2 years to scan all that I had. So ultimately, I threw away those papers.

http://hardware.slashdot.org/story/13/0 ... mindstorms
Hahahahahah! That's brilliant for loose-leaf documents! Thanks for pointing it out.
victoriaaustralia
Posts: 55
Joined: 07 Nov 2011, 16:22
E-book readers owned: newton
Number of books owned: 2
Country: Australia
Location: Castlemaine, Victoria, Australia

Re: kindle, lego, bookscanning and the analog hole

Post by victoriaaustralia »

trader-tx wrote:.
There is a far easier way to capture the ebook pages -- without using a camera at all, and you don't even need the handheld Kindle device at all. In fact, it's a handicap.
Yes this does seem it would be easier. Another commenter here:
http://www.teleread.com/drm/lego-mindst ... k-scanner/
Suggested a similar thing with AutoHotKey.

Jon Jermey says:
September 7, 2013 at 8:55 pm

You can do the same thing much more easily using Kindle for PC with a screen shot program and a keyboard macro application like AutoHotKey. But it’s not as photogenic as a robot.
Freeware Windows workflow in 2020
viewtopic.php?f=19&t=3620
Post Reply