Digital Cameras vs Scanners for OCR?

ttennebkram asks: "With 6 and 8 Megapixel cameras on the market, some now with Wifi built in, it might be more convenient to shoot pictures of your bills and papers with a camera than fussing with the scanner. By the numbers, it would seem feasible. 300dpi for an 8.5"x11" sheet of paper works out to about 8 megapixels; 300 dpi is usually what OCR vendors suggest. I imagine for high volume good results you'd want to maybe mount the camera on a tripod arm over your desk. Heck, I was thinking of a glass desk and maybe one camera below and one above, and maybe a foot pedal to trigger the cameras (and I suppose a flash and high F-stop would help as well). If I could quickly 'snap' all the junk paper I have and electronically file it, maybe OCR the images at night in batch while I'm asleep, and then maybe get rid of all that paper once and for all. Using a traditional cheap scanner just takes too long. So has anybody tried this? I realize that camera optics are different than scanner optics, so maybe it's not just a question of raw pixel counts. Any thoughts?"

Comments

Or better yet...

[svunt]

C'mon, your work doesn't have a scanner/photocopier/printer with a feeder? I take my paperwork into the office once a quarter or so, feed the lot through the scanner in the print room, and email the output to myself at home. If you're one of the rare cases who'd feel bad about this, you could always offset the expense by not using their water cooler or coffee for a week :)

Scanner fuss

[omega9]

I was thinking of a glass desk and maybe one camera below and one above, and maybe a foot pedal to trigger the cameras

Boy, you're right! Who'd want to fuss with a scanner!?