[Scanner-Build] Ram-Book (1 cam, 2 pages, 3rd cheap)

[nifem]

A very cheap scanner I came up with. You actually move the whole scanner and "ram" the book into a corner. The book itself is photographed with one camera only and snaps both sides (which become uniformly distorted). The quality is actually pretty good with full text pages (10 Megapixel). Finereader 10 gets confused with dewarping though if there is very few text on the page (like the TOC page). Do you know a better way to dewarp the pages, as it's pretty much the same warp every time?

Lessons learned for next build:
* Avoid scratches in glass!
* Use a real camera mount! 1. Camera gets really fixated; 2. Metal screws won't destroy mount hole :/
* Use a thinner bottom => Text won't get covered
* Use a spotlight shield (and use thin wood instead of carton if possible, because it's more stable)
* Use total black or white wood => no paper needed to cover the ram to avoid blotches
* Buy power supply and >512 MB card

download sample scans (8pgs.; 10MB)

The whole book is btw available as a free ebook:
.

[spamsickle]

One technique for correcting keystoning (making trapezoidal page images flat and rectangular) was posted here: http://diybookscanner.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=416.

I'd definitely lose that piece of paper bisecting your platen. It seems to me that it doesn't solve any problem, and can only obscure text you'd prefer to see.

[nifem]

> keystoning

Is their a way do automate this task?

> I'd definitely lose that piece of paper bisecting your platen. It seems to me that it doesn't solve any problem, and can only obscure text you'd prefer to see.

It solves spotlights

[univurshul]

Lightroom 3 automates keystone correcting as well among so many other fantastic batch processing features which help prepare images for ScanTailor. One interesting thing here is you need to batch split before keystone-correcting each image (which means sending every image into ST-->auto split-->output to ST under without treating the images-->Keystone correct in LR3 or Photoshop with Spam's script-->export back to ST for final page treatments-->PDF/DJVU builder)

Here's my last test at shooting intentional keystone & correcting, similar to your setup: http://www.diybookscanner.org/forum/vie ... ?f=1&t=636

[univurshul]

and I've noticed that vectorizing keystone-corrected text images is beneficial; it will really clean up text when shooting books like this. Apps like Potrace, Inkscape, Vector Magic and Adobe Acrobat's ClearScan feature in OCR can vectorize post Scan Tailor images.

[univurshul]

With Lightroom 3 you can even save your keystone-correction as a preset edit. If your shooting angles remain the same, the right software to make your life painless is LR3.

[daniel_reetz]

This is a really creative build! I love your use of available... architecture! If you ever get bored, I'd love to see a shot with and without the dividing paper... a very creative and unorthodox solution, indeed...

[spamsickle]

> I'd definitely lose that piece of paper bisecting your platen. It seems to me that it doesn't solve any problem, and can only obscure text you'd prefer to see.

It solves spotlights

I don't know how much control you have over your shooting setup, but it's often possible to place the lights so they illuminate the page but don't reflect directly into the camera. With our typical two-camera setup, placing the lights directly overhead and the cameras off to the side solves the problem. With your "directly overhead" camera, I'd shoot with two lights off to each side instead.

[nifem]

How do you export ScanTailor images from intermediate steps? Or at least, how do you set neutral options for all images?

@univurshul: Thanks for the help!

@spamsickle: I use flashlight only.

[univurshul]

hmmm. well, I'm not sure what will get you the initial splits + them exported as fast as possible. But you'd want to maintain your output quality because once you keytone-correct, they'd be going right back into Scan Tailor.

Tulon might know if you output the initial split to B/W and re-import if is this will cause lessening of quality. A safe bet is to split with as little editing as possible. Keep it full color without illumination and no margin editing. The content selection should be the entire image.

Once the the corrections were made, it's re-sent and given the full ST treatment.