[softwarelist] Re: Image display quality in DPlingscan

On 23 Apr, Dave Barnett <dave@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> In a recent message           Tim Powys-Lybbe <tim@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> > In message of 23 Apr, Dave Barnett <dave@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> >>  I'll now go and have another try at scanning some family
> >> trees that I found in an old book.

> > I have taken several hints from a company, now dormant, called
> > ArchiveCDBooks.  They scanned loads of old books, many with family
> > trees. They achieved very readable and relatively small files using
> > their overhead book scanner.  They probably had superior software to
> > clean up the images.

> They did indeed.  I have bought some of their CDs.  Somewhere on their 
> site they had a description of their process.  They did a 
> straightforward cleanup (that is an oxymoron in this context) and then 
> a selective expansion to overcome the curvature of the page at the 
> spine (custom software, I don't think it is released commercially).  A 
> searchable index was produced where the original pages were good 
> enough for OCR.

Better would have been to use a purpose-made scanner. I've only ever seen one
(at Manchester Metropolitan University library) and it has a perspex
right-angle edge. The book is placed on the right angle with one page flat
horizontal and the other dangling vertical. The scanner works to within a
couple of millimetres of the edge and the scanned page is completely flat - so
no distortion.

NB Scanner for photocopying - but the principle is the same.

-- 
        John
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