[sudo-discuss] SUDO book scanner rig next steps

[jacques revera]

IT was fantastic! meeting the SUDO room last Tuesday. I hope this is not
too much detail

*** Please tell me how... the best way for me to get in there Monday to be
able to look over the sizes of the parts etc mostly bolts I will need to
complete the base hopefully Monday. Any suggestions on hardware mounting
cameras? We might need to mount/un-mount/align cameras for each session.
The original mounting brackets were replaced(at some point) with blocks of
wood with holes to accommodate various sizes and positions of cameras.

(Does the below or some version of it need a wiki page?)
1-2-18, The Sudo room collective et al with Dany from Noisebridge and
Jacques assembled SUDO's book scanner "base." See at diybookscanner.org
"Book Scanner Rigs" a basic diagram and list of hardware (w/out lights &
cams) - with lights & cams, could be called a "rig." I think the
distinction is important introducing people to the concept:

The base is essential for an operator to mount cameras (connected to a
computer), as she flips the pages of a book, running the "capture" software
because, the hundreds of images captured comprising the pages of a book
should be aligned (as much as possible) similarly in 3 dimensions - so that
"post-processing" software can determine what and where everything is to
automatically align, process, OCR etc and then create a digital book.

"After capture, you will have a folder full of images. Turning those images
into an eBook is called 'post-processing'. What steps this actually entails
depends on your needs. Some people want to compress things down as much as
possible and extract the text of the book using OCR. Others just want to
crop each image to the page and bind them into a PDF."
diybookscanner.org/en/intro.html

These two links provide images and discussion of this particular scanner.
Someone dubbed the model: Reese 1.0
https://www.noisebridge.net/wiki/Bookscanner
https://www.noisebridge.net/wiki/Digital_Archivists
(This diybookscanner.org/archivist is the "Reese 2.0" model named and sold
as "The Archivist". Very similar to the 1.0 probably.)

HERE IS WHAT I THINK IS NEEDED TO GET TO CAPTURING BOOKS AND MAKING THE
BOOK SCANNER USABLE:

1. CLIPS TO LOCK DOWN TOP HALF TO BOTTOM
If you watch "BETA DIY Book Scanner Kit Demo and Walkthrough" (the Reese
1.0?)
https://youtu.be/a4-qMc2QSOw
:54 seconds in "A third thing..." he explains why the design looks the way
that it does - to allow for flipping the top half of the scanner to use a
different scanning technique for small mass market type paperbacks which
are bound tight - with tiny inner margins - which make them hard to scan on
most kinds of scanners. Dany and I put a couple of screws in to make sure
no one started flipping th the top because the glass platens are not
clipped down very tight.

2. BASE
handle
bolt w/knob for attaching/adjusting 1 camera base
bungee chords
some other bits I will figure out Monday
power strip bolted down with 6-7 recepticles

3. LIGHTING
To get pages brightly and evenly lit requires a particular kind of light
and other lighting etc to be blacked out. There should be a simple solution
for the lamp needed. I will post the question to the forum this week. I
can't get into reading through and examining all this:
https://forum.diybookscanner.org/viewforum.php?f=16
My initial thought on blackout is curtains and curtain rods are unwiely and
I want to try making a simple heavy duty cardboard box spray painted flat
black on the inside

3. CAMERAS
Resolution needed is one issue. Control is another. Storage/security and
availability are another.
Jake said "I can donate two identical Canon digital cameras to this
project."
"The current camera recommendation is Canon PowerShot ELPH 160. These are
20MP cameras which work with Pi Scan
<http://github.com/Tenrec-Builders/pi-scan> and are still being
manufactured."
http://www.diybookscanner.org/en/intro.html

4. COMPUTER / SOFTWARE
My thought at the moment is since different people have different goals
requiring different software, I want to have mine loaded on my own macbook
but am also interested in setting up a public computer for this.

5. SECURITY & STORAGE
?

Jacques
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