Slashdot Mirror
Software To Flatten a Photographed Book?
davidy writes "I have photographed some pages of a book for reading on my PDA. This is much faster than scanning and I don't have to carry the heavy books. However, the photographed books are not as nice: curved, skewed, and shadowed, as opposed to the much flatter, cleaner scanned books. I have searched for software that can flatten the pages for better reading on the PDA. So far I have come across Unpaper and Scan Tailor. Unpaper doesn't seem to have a windows GUI, and Scan Tailor doesn't unskew well. I remember reading about Google's technique of converting books to e-books with a camera and a laser overlay. Is there any home user software that can do a similar job without the need for a laser overlay or other sophisticated (and patented) technology?"
Aye, this Ask Slashdot sounds more like "Doctor, it hurts whenever I do this." The traditional response to such nonsense is, "well, then don't do that!"
Next question?
He can easily get his tiny 10 megapixels camera into the book store, but he would be stopped immediately if he tried to bring his scanner instead.
Also, avoid being seen by the bookstore clerks.
Cut the spine off and run the pages through a scanner's page feeder... OCR if desired, then enjoy...
I'm surprised that Google doesn't do this, it would be SO much faster than scanning each page one at a time.
Yeah, I don't see why they don't just slice the spine off that one-of-a-kind 16th century book so they can scan it in. That's such an easier way to do it. And I have NO idea why a library would have an issue with that.
Are people around here really this dumb?
This might be what you're after
You're welcome.
Yeah, a dumb fucking computer nerd thinks software is the best solution for every fucking problem. sheesh.
If only there were some kind of device to hold a camera. Maybe something with three legs that retract for easy storage and some hinges for holding the camera at different angles....