DIY Book Scanner

I'd look for bluetooth input devices. A keyboard, a mouse, or even one of those presentation remotes might work out. Just make sure that your laptop supports bluetooth and that the device you get works with the built-in bluetooth rather than through a USB base antenna.

-Jonathon Duerig

Pi Scan supports downloading raw images on DSLR and mirrorless cameras. But not on the cheaper point and shoot cameras. As far as I know, there is no way to generate TIFF files directly on any of the cheap point and shoot cameras. At some point this summer (hopefully early in July), I plan to releas...

What you need is a document scanner. This is the fastest way to scan large amounts of loose paper. An alternative would be a camera with a copy stand. This might be better if you have lots of different odd sized papers, while I think document scanners tend to work best with standard sized full sheet...

Agreed that a flatbed scanner might be just what you are looking for. The other alternative which would be faster to actually scan is what is called a 'copy stand'. This is a simple device for holding your camera vertically above a bed looking down for quick scanning of flat documents. There are alm...

Just FYI, the original user requested that their posts in this thread be deleted. So we have honored their request.

Great to see you've got it sorted. There are two reasons why I host a custom CHDK image. First, it lets me automatically set up the configuration (enable the crosshairs overlay to let you see the center of the viewfinder more easily to perfectly align the camera with a mirror, and give permission to...

What you want here is a multi-process or multi-threaded program. This is how Pi Scan (which used chdkptp.py) does the simultaneous triggering. Feel free to take a look at the code here which uses multithreading: https://github.com/Tenrec-Builders/pi-scan The easiest way might be to just use the Pyth...

I don't have experience with the Panasonic G5. So I can't recommend it (or dis-recommend it). But to answer your questions: (1) I think 'shutterless' and 'electronic shutter' are the same thing. Mirrorless cameras can have either mechanical or electronic shutters. The thing that mirrorless cameras d...

There are two other constraints here. First, there will be a maximum and minimum distance from the camera which can remain in focus. The camera must be in this range of distance from the page. Second, since the page must be well-lit, the camera needs to be at a sufficient distance away so that it wo...

I was doing some research and it seems like JPEG actually preserves fine details pretty well. JPEG compression artifacts are much more likely to happen on large areas that are mostly the same color. Having said that, lossless is clearly better for archival purposes either way. Preserving detail 'pre...