Digitizing a book with a camera

[ontopofthe7thhill]

Is this a joke?

How much memory is that going to take, let alone the many intricate steps to take the photos store them and well, try to convert them into text. Besides I don't think that's possible. :p

[wilika]

@ontopofthe7thhill

Why would it be a joke? Memory? The time this video was made, my cam had only a one gig card, and my laptop had also one gig ram. Shooting the pages didn't take so long, and the batch process (automated, in photoshop) to enhance the pictures went quick aswell. Since this book had a lot of mathematical texts, and graphs we didn't bother to make a recognition on it. The goal was to make the book available for my mates on the university.

Anyway, Adobe Acrobat X is great in OCR.

[dying2l]

have you figured out how to convert the photo to text?

[wilika]

@dying2l

Adobe Acrobat X offers a great OCR solution: I takes the pages, recognises the texts, and converts them, leaving every unrecognisable part as image. What you get: A pdf, much more smaller then the full-image original, and no information-loss. (and ofcourse a searchable text)

[WalterZelhofer]

Jo otlet, det a Snapscan az gyorsabb (bosc, nem tudok jol irni Magyarul)

[wilika]

@WalterZelhofer

Rákerestem, de annyira nem értem, mi az. Többnyire lapbehúzós (sheet fed?) scannereket találtam erre a szóra.

[curiousjapan]

it is a shame you do not have two cameras... you could wrap the book around the corner of the fishtank (on the outside of the glass), and shoot the left and right page at the same time

[whatupcuz]

have you found a faster way to scan books? got any tips to do it. thank you

[wilika]

This was the fastest way so far.

[HammeringOracle]

if you set this operation up right, you can scan in a 400 page book in 20 minutes

[wilika]

how do you mean it?

[lucirz]

@wilika how many Mega pixel is your camera?

[wilika]

@lucirz

As far as I remember, it was set to 3 mpx. (the model itself can shoot pictures up to 6mpx)

[sagoorbest]

i mean adjust the camera so it is above the book ....as in upside down

[wilika]

why would that help me?

[sagoorbest]

hey y dont u put the camera overhead?

[wilika]

Uhm, how do you mean it?

[seasun7]

congrats for the video, I am working on OCR from camera too, do you have success? what OCR rates do you achieve?

[wilika]

Wow, thanks.

To be honest, I'v never really had the patience, to use OCR on that stuff (it's a book about engineering, and mechanics, with lots of pictures, and specil characters, and so on)

[jonreeve]

It's misleading to have an English title for a non-English video.

[wilika]

tsk-tsk-tsk, terrible. Shame on me. shame-shame

(Not to mention the english description)

[runawayfae]

I like the idea... What does "magyar" mean? I know someone whose last name is Magyar.

[wilika]

Magyar=hungarian

Magyarország=Hungary (Hungaro-land)

:)

[runawayfae]

I wonder if the family I know is hungarian... I mean, why else would they have that name?

[wilika]

Well, maybe some of the elders were hungarian, but they might forgotten everything.

[runawayfae]

That would be sad. I wish I knew my family's history.

[wilika]

My aunt have found some stuff till 400 yrs back.

We even have two coat of arms (how the f do I write this?) One of them has got a warrior on it, holding a tatarian head on the tip of a sword... :)

[runawayfae]

That's a great coat of arms!!