Re: Digital camera systems for scanning [was Re: Moutain Lion andEyePal]
Morning David, Well like yourself I tend to have to scan a lot although this is thankfully diminishing as most of the Computer Science textbooks are now available in electronic format. I've used the Eyepal a lot for the reasons you have. If I could find a good, very fast Flatbed scanner I'd use it but this will do for now. The topic of whether a student should/shouldn't do their own scanning is off topic for this list (which is a shame *smile*) but I can't resist adding I agree with you. Oh just one other thing, and this is a bit of advice which I hope you don't mind me giving. As soon as you get the PHD, get DR. aded to your bank account. Trust me, it's helpful. Cheers, Dónal On 13 Mar 2013, at 22:54, David Griffith d.griff...@btinternet.com wrote: I agree Multipage scanning is a must. I wonder if the Hovercam would interface with vue Scan? The other possible option is if the Hovercam could create a folder of Jpgs then a more efficient use of finereader may be possible. This essentially what I do with EyePal books. These are just folders of jpg files with a config file. FineReader on the Windows side does a good job working on all these to convert them into a Word file. I imagine the Mac version would do the same. Re whether a digital camera is essential I think it depends on what you need. I am just submitting my PhD and I am sure I would not have achieved this without the EyePal, whatever its annoying bugs and foibles. The sheer amount of scanning would not have been practical with a flatbed. With the eyePal I can independently scan a 300 page text book in less than an hour. The British Library also allowed me access to their Reading rooms with an EyePal and Netbook to effectively take digital copies of books there. They had a slow flatbed but I would probably have had to book in for bed if I had relied on that. Admittedly the EyePal software would then take up to 30 minute to convert this all to text but I can be getting on with doing something else whilst this happens. Interestingly people who are blind students have very different attitudes to scanning. I was always keen to maximise my independence . I was asked to advice someone else embarking on research about strategies. He became positively angry at my suggestion that a blind person could, or could ever be expected to scan course books independently. He wanted to use a support worker for this purpose with no input from him. The support worker would be employed for hours a weeks inefficiently churning out pages on a slow flatbed scanner. The result was very quickly far more expensive than my EyePal option. He was given 6 hours a week at approx £25 and hour. Over the 4 years I have spent on my PHD this would have equated to nearly £20,000 . In that context the £1,600 spent on the Eyepal seems better value. hour. I used support for scanning also, particularly with proofreading crucial parts but I think the digital camera solutions do offer far more potential for independence. David Griffith -Original Message- From: mac-access-boun...@mac-access.net [mailto:mac-access-boun...@mac-access.net] On Behalf Of Dónal Fitzpatrick Sent: 13 March 2013 22:03 To: Mac OSX iOS Accessibility Subject: Re: Digital camera systems for scanning [was Re: Moutain Lion andEyePal] Hi again, Just to save people some time I've taken a listen to that podcast and here are some observations: 1. the paper must be carefully lined up with tactile markings on a supplied paper mat. The demonstrator comments that if the page is crooked, then scan quality degrades. 2. This one is crucial for me: Mr. Campbell states that he has not been (at the time of this recording) able to do a multi page scan. Unless the Hover Cam can be used in conjunction with other software, or indeed multi page scanning is possible, then it's a non-starter for me. I should also add that whilst navigating the Hover Cam software interface, I heard a reference to a multi page filetype button so it clearly is possible it's just the demonstrator has not managed it yet. On this basis, it cannot be said how accessible (or otherwise) the multi page scanning process is. I'd like to conclude by saying I'm not being in the least critical of the podcast here far from it I'm just summarising. It clearly works. One can hear the results of scanning a creased flyer which were pretty good. I hope this is a fair summary, I'd ask Esther and/or others who have listened to correct anything I have got wrong. Best, Dónal On 13 Mar 2013, at 21:21, Esther mori...@mac-access.net wrote: Hello Cait, David, Dónal, and Others, I'm not sure that I agree with David about requiring digital camera systems, but as an alternative to the Eyepal, have you listened to the recent AppleVis podcast that Matthew Campbell did on Using the HoverCam T5-V Document Scanner and ABBYY FineReader as a Scanning Solution
RE: Digital camera systems for scanning [was Re: Moutain Lion andEyePal]
I agree Multipage scanning is a must. I wonder if the Hovercam would interface with vue Scan? The other possible option is if the Hovercam could create a folder of Jpgs then a more efficient use of finereader may be possible. This essentially what I do with EyePal books. These are just folders of jpg files with a config file. FineReader on the Windows side does a good job working on all these to convert them into a Word file. I imagine the Mac version would do the same. Re whether a digital camera is essential I think it depends on what you need. I am just submitting my PhD and I am sure I would not have achieved this without the EyePal, whatever its annoying bugs and foibles. The sheer amount of scanning would not have been practical with a flatbed. With the eyePal I can independently scan a 300 page text book in less than an hour. The British Library also allowed me access to their Reading rooms with an EyePal and Netbook to effectively take digital copies of books there. They had a slow flatbed but I would probably have had to book in for bed if I had relied on that. Admittedly the EyePal software would then take up to 30 minute to convert this all to text but I can be getting on with doing something else whilst this happens. Interestingly people who are blind students have very different attitudes to scanning. I was always keen to maximise my independence . I was asked to advice someone else embarking on research about strategies. He became positively angry at my suggestion that a blind person could, or could ever be expected to scan course books independently. He wanted to use a support worker for this purpose with no input from him. The support worker would be employed for hours a weeks inefficiently churning out pages on a slow flatbed scanner. The result was very quickly far more expensive than my EyePal option. He was given 6 hours a week at approx £25 and hour. Over the 4 years I have spent on my PHD this would have equated to nearly £20,000 . In that context the £1,600 spent on the Eyepal seems better value. hour. I used support for scanning also, particularly with proofreading crucial parts but I think the digital camera solutions do offer far more potential for independence. David Griffith -Original Message- From: mac-access-boun...@mac-access.net [mailto:mac-access-boun...@mac-access.net] On Behalf Of Dónal Fitzpatrick Sent: 13 March 2013 22:03 To: Mac OSX iOS Accessibility Subject: Re: Digital camera systems for scanning [was Re: Moutain Lion andEyePal] Hi again, Just to save people some time I've taken a listen to that podcast and here are some observations: 1. the paper must be carefully lined up with tactile markings on a supplied paper mat. The demonstrator comments that if the page is crooked, then scan quality degrades. 2. This one is crucial for me: Mr. Campbell states that he has not been (at the time of this recording) able to do a multi page scan. Unless the Hover Cam can be used in conjunction with other software, or indeed multi page scanning is possible, then it's a non-starter for me. I should also add that whilst navigating the Hover Cam software interface, I heard a reference to a multi page filetype button so it clearly is possible it's just the demonstrator has not managed it yet. On this basis, it cannot be said how accessible (or otherwise) the multi page scanning process is. I'd like to conclude by saying I'm not being in the least critical of the podcast here far from it I'm just summarising. It clearly works. One can hear the results of scanning a creased flyer which were pretty good. I hope this is a fair summary, I'd ask Esther and/or others who have listened to correct anything I have got wrong. Best, Dónal On 13 Mar 2013, at 21:21, Esther mori...@mac-access.net wrote: Hello Cait, David, Dónal, and Others, I'm not sure that I agree with David about requiring digital camera systems, but as an alternative to the Eyepal, have you listened to the recent AppleVis podcast that Matthew Campbell did on Using the HoverCam T5-V Document Scanner and ABBYY FineReader as a Scanning Solution on the Mac? Here's the link to the URL: http://www.applevis.com/podcast/episodes/using-hovercam-t5-v-document -scanner-and-abbyy-finereader-scanning-solution-mac That's a very long link, so here's a shortened version in case it wraps: http://bit.ly/10jLC8v I know that the HoverCam use with Docuscan has been discussed by a number of people, but there are a number of people who have issues with using a solution where you have to submit your scans to an external internet source in order to do the OCR, and in addition, Docuscan only works for English, whereas ABBYY Finereader Express provides an OCR solution for numerous languages. The HoverCam solution is around $300. The cost of an Eyepal at over 2000 Euros (to use Dónal's estimate) does seem excessive for old technology. HTH. Cheers, Esther On Mar 13, 2013, at 2:23 AM, David
