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Originally Posted by HarryT
Libraries? It's one thing to scan your own books - quite another to scan library books. That's just blatant copyright infringement.
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I meant you can bring your own books in and use the scanner - just like at a hackerspace or makespace. Most communities have a library - not all have a hackerspace/makespace.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Kali Yuga
$475 = around 40 scanned books, at $12/each.
150 pages an hour just to do the photos. Probably an hour to convert it to an image PDF. If I OCR it, that's going to take even more time.
I think I'll just keep the paper versions.
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As mentioned before, this wouldn't be worth it if you only have a few books. By your math $475 = 400 at $1.20 each, and $475 = 1000 at $0.48 each. Economies of scale apply.
If all you want is an image PDF - that is just a matter of a couple of minutes with a reasonably competent computer. However, the OCR itself is done automatically in the background as I take the images; It is usually done within a few minutes of me scanning the book. It does take longer to spell check and proofread...but most people would do the spell check and proofing anyway when they want to make a good ePub. The key is getting good quality images for the software to work from. These scanners have everything set up to take those consistent good quality images. This results in very few OCR errors....of course the quality of the book you are scanning is a big factor too, but a bad source would make ANY job harder on any device.
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Originally Posted by BenG
All you need is a flatbed scanner and Finereader. This tutorial is for Finereader 5 but I've used it with Finereader 8 and perhaps could be adapted for later versions. I've scanned a medium sized paperback in a little over an hour while watching TV. It's non-destructive except for some stress on the spine.
http://sno2.iwarp.com/ebook-faq/documents/page-4-1.html |
Yes, exactly. If you are only doing a few books this is an option - I've used it myself before building my own scanner. One problem I ran into was the distortion of the words as the page bends near the spine. That distortion is the source of most OCR errors.
The plattens/cradles used in most peoples designs are angled so the book is held in a non-spine-stressing position. The cameras are also positioned so you get a vertical and centered image of each page - that drastically reduces any errors that the OCR software needs to correct. You also get a lot of speed benefit when you use cameras to take an image of the page instead of scanning. Click-2 pages done, click-2 pages done instead of "chunk chunk whiz brrrrrrrr chunkety chunkety" - 1 page done.
Quote:
Originally Posted by HarryT
If your time is worth anything to you, you really couldn't possibly compete with people like 1dollarscan, with their commercial sheet-fed scanners. This DIY scanner is interesting, but of really no commercial practicality.
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"Time is Money"
I too have a life...and you won't see me spending all day every day scanning books. But I will spend an hour on a book here and there. Having my own scanner available when I want to use it is awesome. I'm not sure about this kit version, but I designed mine to be portable...I can take it down and set it up in just a few minutes. It fits into a box about the size of 3 shoe boxes and fits neatly in my closet.
If you have enough money then it is certainly easier to just buy a new ebook...but not all books are available electronically.
There is also an issue with paying for someone else to do the "format shifting" for you. In some countries you are only allowed to shift the format on your own personally owned copy.
There is a TON of commercial practicality in creating quick/accurate scanners. Check out the
http://www.diybookscanner.org website and you will see several mentions of how governments and businesses are buying these things to digitize their records.
When reading about this device you must keep in mind that it was started as a DIY project. DIYers are a different breed of folk anyway - part of the draw is learning, designing, and building something yourself. However, there were so many requests from people who were not technically inclined to purchase scanners that others built, that the "founder", Daniel Reetz, started working on this KIT that could easily be assembled by anyone.
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Originally Posted by ghostyjack
This may work on text but what about images?
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Through experimentation they found that the ideal resolution for OCR of scanned text is 300dpi - anything more just slows down the software and anything less leads to more errors. If you do the math 300dpi for a 10in x 12in image is 3000 x 3600 pixels or 10.8 MegaPixels - definitely in the range of moderate to low priced cameras today.
That resolution is fine for simple images - especially black and white diagrams or images/maps. If you want really high resolution for the cover or artwork it is recommended to scan those separately and insert them later - a VERY easy process if you are using something like SIGIL.
Video cameras have been tried but the resolution - and time/difficulty in picking the best frame from within the video to use for OCR made digital cameras the best option...unless you want to go with super fast video and lasers and such...that can read a whole book in a few seconds. You are talking several thousand dollars for that kind of setup. Here's a cool video showing some university developing that technology:
HERE
Cheers!