A DIY Book Scanner In Every Hackerspace /DIY Kit

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.

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mnesnay
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Re: A DIY Book Scanner In Every Hackerspace /DIY Kit

Post by mnesnay »

A few questions (Any answers could be estimates, if that helps.):

Can the current design file be scaled up by the difference of 9x12 to 11x16 - like each piece be increased by 10% (I know that's not the correct percentage)? I'm assuming that since the cradle -where the book is placed- has to increase in size, the length and width of the entire scanner will also increase. And the height of the led light would also have to be raised?

Is it possible to get just the design file and i'll find someone located here to cut it?
What would it cost for the new design?
How long would the design file take to create?

What do you think it would cost to have the new larger scanner cut out and shipped to New Jersey?
How long do you think this process would take?
Lastly,the glass used for the platen, did you ever try non-glare glass?

We were looking to start in the next few weeks, but I know you said you were busy for the next few months. Thanks so much.
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daniel_reetz
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Re: A DIY Book Scanner In Every Hackerspace /DIY Kit

Post by daniel_reetz »

whew!

The design doesn't scale linearly right now, because a lot of it is based on material thickness. However, it is not impossible to just extend the camera brace, small brace, and lever arms. You'd also want to enlarge the cradle. Light has to go up 9" in the current model, would be more, but not much more, for you.

The design files for the current scanner are linked at the top of this post. I don't do commission work as of now, but I'd be willing to talk with you about that off the boards.

No idea about design time, but consider that this design took me three months from scratch (the entire history is here in this exact thread)

No specifics about costs right now, it would cost more than the current kit because there would only be one, and me or a CNC guy would have to program it.

The glass thing has been discussed here on the forums about ten thousand times (no fault of yours). Regular plate glass or AR-coated glass, no other glass will work.
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daniel_reetz
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Re: A DIY Book Scanner In Every Hackerspace /DIY Kit

Post by daniel_reetz »

Tell you what, do you have any programming talent in your organization? If you want to use Nikon D800's, you'll ideally want to control them via computer. The best way to do that is via Gphoto2. We need a Gphoto2 plugin for Spreads, our new scanner control system. If you knew someone who could make a Gphoto2 plugin happen, I would trade the labor on a redesign, at least for a first prototype.

This offer stands for anyone else here on the boards, too.
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jbaiter
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Re: A DIY Book Scanner In Every Hackerspace /DIY Kit

Post by jbaiter »

daniel_reetz wrote:Tell you what, do you have any programming talent in your organization? If you want to use Nikon D800's, you'll ideally want to control them via computer. The best way to do that is via Gphoto2. We need a Gphoto2 plugin for Spreads, our new scanner control system. If you knew someone who could make a Gphoto2 plugin happen, I would trade the labor on a redesign, at least for a first prototype.

This offer stands for anyone else here on the boards, too.
To expand on that a bit:
For a gphoto2 plugin to happen, we would first have to find a way to reliably control gphoto2 from Python. While this can be done by calling the CLI utilities, a better way would be to call into libgphoto2 directly.
There are currently two packages that claim to do this:
  • libgphoto2-python: Not very actively developed, uses PyRex for the bindings, which means that PyPy compatibility (which would be nice...) might be problematic. Additionally, the repository currently features a disclaimer not to use the package yet...
  • piggyphoto: Looks very promising, uses CTypes for the bindings and should thus work across most Python-implementations, unfortunately inactive for 3 years, but I think we might have a good shot at resurrecting it, the code seems to be clear and not too convoluted. There's a tutorial for it on the Magic Lantern Wiki
All in all, I would love to see this happening and would very much like to help with development. I can't make it my main-focus at the moment since there's plenty of other stuff I'd like to do in spreads first, though.

Prospective developers would probably have to be knowledgeable in the following areas:
  • Python, for writing the plugin itself
  • ctypes or cffi for dealing with the libgphoto2-bindings
  • C (rudimentary knowledge should be enough), since a lecture of the libgphoto2 headers will be necessary for writing/modifying the bindings
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mera461
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Re: A DIY Book Scanner In Every Hackerspace /DIY Kit

Post by mera461 »

Have you considered using Swig? That will generate you a "raw" library that covers all functions in libgphoto2 and you can then create a small OO layer on top of that (Swig will generate python classes, but perhaps not the prettiest :-)) ala piggyphoto but without all the mapping code. That way:
  • you don't have to manually do all the mapping to the c functions
  • you will always have access to all functions even if they are not fully supported in the additional pretty-OO layer
  • it will be easier to upgrade to newer versions of libgphoto2
If you create a swig folder in the libgphoto2 source folder you can use the attached swig file (remove the .txt extension) and convert it with a "swig -python libgphoto2.i" command.
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jbaiter
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Re: A DIY Book Scanner In Every Hackerspace /DIY Kit

Post by jbaiter »

Thanks for the suggestion mera, I haven't taken a closer look at SWIG yet.
My only experience with it stems from some "bundled" bindings for C++ libraries, and to be honest they were always pretty much horrible :-/ Could be that that was mainly due to lack of care of the authors and not swig, but that's just my current association with it .)
If I were to do it, I'd probably choose CFFI for the bindings. There's no manual mapping of the C functions either, the API is very easy and it does not require any third-party tooling to get running. Plus, PyPy compatibility, Swig is currently CPython only as far as my superficial research showed.
I'll take another look at swig though when I get the chance :-)
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Re: A DIY Book Scanner In Every Hackerspace /DIY Kit

Post by chunkerchunker »

Hi Johannes, i took a look at piggyphoto, and it pretty much worked out of the box except for fixing up some platform-dependent issues (32-bit vs 64-bit pointers). I've submitted a pull request to the author at https://github.com/alexdu/piggyphoto/pull/10, and I hope to have time to integrate it with spreads over the weekend.

Fyi, i'm testing on a Mac (latest version 10.9). I'll take a look at making sure it works on the Raspberry Pi after i have it all working locally.
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Re: A DIY Book Scanner In Every Hackerspace /DIY Kit

Post by chunkerchunker »

I've submitted a pull request with basic gphoto2 support (https://github.com/DIYBookScanner/spreads/pull/90), and i've done basic testing with Canon T2i and 5Dmk2 cameras.

If anyone has non-chdk cameras they'd like to test this out with, it'd be good to hear if this works for others as well.

This is mentioned in the updated drivers.rst, but note that this depends on the piggyphoto library that Johannes suggested using, but with a number of modifications. So, until those changes are merged upstream, you'll have to install it from my repo:

Code: Select all

pip install -e git://github.com/YesVideo/piggyphoto#egg=piggyphoto
Of course, you also have to have libgphoto installed. For example, on a Mac:

Code: Select all

brew install gphoto2 libgphoto2
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Re: A DIY Book Scanner In Every Hackerspace /DIY Kit

Post by Crispy »

Hi,

I've decided to use a cnc routing service to cut out the Hackerspace Book Scanner parts, but the machinist I have contacted has raised a few concerns about the plans I've downloaded from the site. I quote (very nearly) in full:

... whilst this job is possible to do, the main CAD file is far from perfect so the programming would take a fair bit of time to sort out. It is also unclear from the instructions how many sheets are needed - I am assuming just one.

The way it is drawn, we would need to use a 6mm cutter, which I would not advise for 18mm birch. You will inevitably get burn marks especially at the corners because such a small cutter will need to be run slowly to stop it breaking. I also need to allow a fair bit of time to work out all the recess depths - there is no indication on the CAD drawing and the image files do not match with it properly.

[...]

If someone could rework the CAD file to show the recess depths, re-space the components for a 12.7mm cutter, allow for drill holes at the internal corners (instead of loops), and draw circles *as* circles (not polygons), we could do it for a lot less!


What I'd like to know is whether the caveats raised here are valid, and if so, has anyone else encountered these issues when machining their hackerspace book scanner components?
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Re: A DIY Book Scanner In Every Hackerspace /DIY Kit

Post by duerig »

Crispy, I am not sure about the old style scanner because it predated me. However, I would strongly recommend using the plans for the new Archivist scanner instead. I've been working on making some Archivist kits and can provide guidance about how to get them cut out. Feel free to email me at help at tenrec dot builders and we can talk about it.

Your main source is the epic design guide that Daniel has put up here: http://www.diybookscanner.org/archivist/

This has a bunch of dxf and stl files for all the pieces of the new Archivist. And I can answer any questions that it doesn't.

In general, the new archivist has better lighting, can handle larger books, and is much easier to assemble than the older scanner.

-D
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