tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10539912.post1505643853661469117..comments2024-03-09T20:09:10.016-05:00Comments on Heartcrossings: Book ScanningHeartcrossingshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11611681863892546438noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10539912.post-36251129679015422082009-07-19T08:34:43.816-04:002009-07-19T08:34:43.816-04:00Very interesting, except you've managed to ext...Very interesting, except you've managed to extrapolate a whole new bad situation for traditional bookshops from a couple of false assumptions<br /><br />1/ this device allows you to "scan books without opening them". It doesn't. The book still has to be opened and the pages turned. What the invention does is save you from having to choose between ruining a potentially fragile historical document by mashing it flat onto the face of a flatbed scanner, undoing the binding and putting it through a sheet-fed document scanner, running a (rare, nowadays) handheld device over it and potentially damaging the page surface, or just photographing it and getting a very poor copy out because of the differences in focus and the curvature (and creasing?) of the page. They use a pair of cameras, and a known pattern projected by the infra-red device, to reconstruct a virtual 3D copy of the page then flatten it out in software. You'd have at least as much trouble using such a system in a store as just standing there with a phone camera flicking through to get that selfsame low quality version as this corrects for.<br /><br />2/ That they have any intent or ability to make a compact, consumer version of a currently quite specialist-purpose and bulky device, which wasn't mentioned anywhere. It may happen, as it has to some things such as computers and video recorders... or it may not, as it hasn't for radiotherapy machines or full-feature weather stations.<br /><br />... but thanks for the links, anyway ;-pAnonymousnoreply@blogger.com