Jack Gassett wrote: > Hello, I am trying to find out if this is possible before I dive into > programming this. I would like to use an old scanner in a robotics > project. Instead of tearing it apart and using my own stepper controller > it would be nice to use SANE to control the stepper controller built > into the scanner. So is it possible to get to a low enough level with > SANE to move the scanner head to a specific position and then have it > stop there. Then move it to another position and stop there? > > I was hoping that I could use the SANE API's to control the scanner head > movement and then the code would work for several different scanners. If > SANE's API's are too high level to do this does anyone know if this > would be possible with TWAIN or any other similiar API?
I think the sane API is indeed too high level for this. Sane basically allows you to set a bunch of parameters (scan area + DPI is probably the lowest common denominator), then to start the scan and read the data. There is no specific sane function to move a stepper motor, this stuff is handled by each scanner-specific backend. I don't know about TWAIN or any other api. > I think worst case scenario I will have to target a specific scanner and > then look for any reverse engineering information on the Web or get > usbsnoop and try to reverse it myself. I would prefer to avoid this and > be able to go the easy route. I would like to do this in a manner that > other people can benefit from this as well. Some scanner chips are used in a lot of different scanner models, even from different manufacturers. Perhaps you can pick a scanner with a very common scan chipset. The genesys chips seem to be very popular in low-cost scanners. Kinds regards, Bertrik
