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Re: Post something about yourself here (The Hello Thread)

Posted: 12 Feb 2011, 16:16
by Softy Squirrel
Hi

My name is Martin and I am in the UK. I can't recall the last time I joined a forum but this one has given me enough confidence to have a go and to participate. I have bought a pair of refurbished A480s and they arrived nearly a week earlier than I was expecting - so now I need to try and find the thread I saw earlier that put all the instructions for putting SDM (or was it CHDK) onto a camera!

I have been reviewing the "New Standard Scanner" thread and having looked at a few of the other builds I can see that provided I follow some basic principles that there is quite some flexibility in the build. This will help me as I have plenty of wood to hand and all the woodworking equipment I need but not quite the same hardware items such as draw slides, lamps etc. So if anyone in the UK wants to swap experiences I am all ears.

I have spent some time with the post processing side of things - I converted some PDF files that were obviously scans of books, converted pages to individual TIFF files with some freeware and processed them with Scan Tailor and so got some practice in beforehand. That and the clocking of cameras thread to enable sequential file compilation makes me think I can use my Acrobat software to get some decent results - I am a fan of Clearscan as it has worked well for me in the past.

So now to hunt down that SDM /CHDK thread and to see if the various cables I have acquired will do the job.

Regards
Martin

Re: Post something about yourself here (The Hello Thread)

Posted: 13 Feb 2011, 13:44
by rob
Congratulations to Softy Squirrel Martin, who is the 1000th member of the forum! Acorns for everyone!

Re: Post something about yourself here (The Hello Thread)

Posted: 14 Feb 2011, 14:44
by Inhapi
Hello, Inhapi here,

I'm an Archeological/egyyptological research assistant. My interest in the book scanner lies in the ability to scan, archive and eventually distribute rare and old egyptological/archaeological publications.

I need to consult these old publications quite often and often have to use interlibrary loans to consult them or even travel to other specialised libraries. My goal is to build a scanner and whenever i loan a rare/old book scan it, also to the benefit of my collegues. (books that are out of copyright eh ?)

I do have some DIY skills so i'm planning on building my own rig. I did photograph some books quickly in sunlight with a loaned panasonic DMC-TZ6.

I have pile of lumber lying around and various metal profiles, so i guess the most important cost will be the camera's

Given the fact that these old books are sometimes almost A3 size and usually about 20% larger than A4 i guess i'd need 10 megapix at least, but i'm also looking at the new 12 megapix cameras that are now appearing. Also these publications are usually "image heavy" and the quality of the imagery really is quite important (eg. when studying button-seals or coins and so...)

I'll browse around in the fora. My most pressing questions are which cameras to use and which lights. Also im looking at what material to use for the platen. But i guess with some reading in the forums i'll find out most of this stuff.

Anyway thanks for setting up this wonderful site. When i first came in here, my mind went like: THIS is just what i was looking for.

Cheers,

Inhapi.

Re: Post something about yourself here (The Hello Thread)

Posted: 14 Feb 2011, 23:52
by L0g1cM0del
Hi everyone,

I’ve been around for a little while in the forums, but have previously visited to read the contributions this great community has done. It is amazing when people can come together around an idea and develop, contribute, and in some ways make the world a better place from it.

I have always enjoyed learning from a variety of topics and spending time just reading about anything really. The idea of book scanning to me is a great one because it takes information that is in a limited format and makes it portable, searchable, translatable, and in some ways more open and meaningful. I still think of what a loss it was for the Library of Alexandria and all the information that we will never get to learn about. I don’t want to see my books (or anyone else’s) end like that and I hope that we never have to suffer such a loss again.

For me, the best part about book scanning is the portability and searchability of the books. I think of all the times that I would say gosh, I really wish I had my book and could remember where that line was. With scanning, it allows me to do that.

With that, I would just like to say, that I hope I can contribute back to the community that has given me so much. Thank you Daniel, for beginning this website and inspiring so many people to come together around this idea, and thanks to everyone in this community for all their contributions big and small.

Re: Post something about yourself here (The Hello Thread)

Posted: 21 Feb 2011, 11:25
by Mr Fujisawa
Hi everyone,

I've been reading the forums for a while but now that i have the free time to do something I thought I would sign up!

So i have an e-reader and lots of books that simply arent available in digital format, so the only solution is to do them myself!

I still havent decided the best way of doing the scanning.,I have had a go with ABBY FineReader and Sigil but I don't really know what I'm doing yet!

Anyway, great to see all the dedication of people here.

Fuji

Re: Post something about yourself here (The Hello Thread)

Posted: 21 Feb 2011, 16:04
by kylel2005
Hi Everyone,

I found this forum yesterday and have begun planning my ghetto version cardboard box single camera book scanner. Perhaps one day I will upgrade to something better if I am successful with the first. I have been wanting several books for my Kindle that are not available. I wrote the publishers but none of them have plans to put them on the Kindle, so I thought I would try myself. I just ordered ABBYY Finereader yesterday and am looking forward to seeing what I can do.

Kyle

Re: Post something about yourself here (The Hello Thread)

Posted: 28 Feb 2011, 03:04
by dvelleman
Hey. I'm Dan.

I'm a linguistics student, and one of my big interests is the modern Mayan languages --- which, I found out when I started studying one, are undergoing a pretty serious publishing boom. Twenty years ago in K'ichee' (which is the language I'm studying) you had the Popol Vuh and some old legal documents from the 1600s, and a couple of mediocre Bible translations, and that was basically it. Now there are a few dozen books in print in K'ichee', including some really fantastic original stuff by living authors --- and dozens more in other Mayan languages.

So this is all exciting for lots of reasons. But one of them (if you're a linguist) is that this is loads of new! data! in a bunch of low-resource languages. So when I got home from Guatemala with a suitcase full of books, I started thinking "Gee, these would be really useful for the research I'm doing if only they were searchable..."

And after a few months of wrestling intermittently with flatbed scanners, here I am. Not usually much of a hardware guy, but I'm hoping to bang together something functional.

Re: Post something about yourself here (The Hello Thread)

Posted: 28 Feb 2011, 03:11
by Ryan_phx
Welcome, Dan!

Academic research was my primary motivation for building a scanner, too. Now if I can just find time to use it...

Re: Post something about yourself here (The Hello Thread)

Posted: 28 Feb 2011, 13:43
by dvelleman
...yeah, I'll cross that bridge when I get to it (but I imagine I'll get to it pretty quick). There's never enough time to study all the stuff you want to study, is there?

Re: Post something about yourself here (The Hello Thread)

Posted: 09 Mar 2011, 14:11
by Rhea27
Hi everyone. I found you nice people after searching the internet for ideas on how to scan books. Amazing to find so many people scanning! My interest is in scanning old photo albums and documents that are in book form and converting them to digital for preservation...and also so they can be put on CD and shared with family rather than sitting in a box in someone's attic. I fell in love with the idea of using something other than a flatbed scanner, and I have built the DIY scanner. I currently have one camera, but will soon add the second. I think I'm beginning to understand ScanTailor after multiple attempts! I have a lot to learn about how to get the finished product looking decent. But I'm very thankful for these forums where I've gained information on who has tried what and what works best. :P