Scanner Server?

chuckw asks: "Does anyone know if there are any open source projects that are working on building a scanner server and client? I have a pretty nice document scanner plugged into my Linux server and I want to give everyone in my house access to it, much like a regular document printer. Network bandwidth isn't really an issue (100baseT). I personally would like to start such a project but I don't want to duplicate anyone's effort. I've looked all over and can't find any currently running projects doing this. If this isn't currently being done, do you want to join the project? Do you see any major technical issues preventing such a project? "

Comments

Re:SANE

[nicktamm]

I haven't ever tried SANE either (since I only have the winmodem-like SCSI card that came with the scanner, and it isn't supported by Linux), but I still looked around at the website for SANE a while ago, and found that you can do exactly as described in the above message.
saned runs as a server on the computer with the scanner, and then the clients all use SANE with the sane-net driver (the webpage calls it a backend, but I'm pretty sure it is like a driver) to access the remote scanner. A list of platforms that SANE supports is listed here, and there are also clients available for several other platforms, such as windows (which is likely to be in use if it is a home network), and even a CGI frontend to allow access over a web browser if there isn't a dedicated client available for your OS of choice. The list of related projects such as the mentioned clients can be found here, and SANE's website is here.

Re:SANE

[Ryan Kirkpatrick]

As one who has (and does) use this, I can tell you it works, and works well. I have my scanner (SCSI Mustek) connected to my headless P100 (mp3 player), running Linux and saned (via inetd). Then I open GIMP on a Linux workstation, and use the SANE plugin for GIMP to scan with. Just point it across the network (see docs for detail) and it works! Even on a 10mbit network (though switched) it is plenty fast (think my scanner is the bottle neck on this one).

I have never used a client for any other platform than Linux. I didn't even knew there were other clients. Could be useful...
------------------------------------------------ ----------------------------