Brainstorming on scanning

[Bob Rasmussen]

Hi folks,

With John Esak working on a project to use the scanning features of 
AnzioWin, I thought I'd offer some thoughts about what's possible now and 
in the near future with AnzioWin, our terminal emulator. 

1) Scanning is designed to support any scanner that has a TWAIN interface. 

2) AnzioWin's menu system offers "Scan and print", "Scan and save", "Scan 
   and send" (to the server), and "Scan and View".

3) Scanning can also be done via an Anzio command. Anzio commands can come 
from the host, from an Anzio macro, from a toolbar button, etc.

4) We treat the scanner as an input file named "SCAN://". Many scan 
operations can be thought of as file copies from SCAN:// to somewhere 
else.

5) The following command will scan and save to a local file:
     COPY SCAN:// c:\scans\somefile.jpg

6) When the destination specifies a file extension, AnzioWin converts the 
image(s) into the corresponding format.

7) The filename "SCAN://" can have additional parameters that specify 
various settings about the scanning, to allow you to scan more 
programmatically, less interactively. 

8) The following format specifies what scanner to use:
      SCAN://MyHpScanner
or
      "SCAN://My Epson"
where quotes protect the embedded space(s).

9) This can be followed by one or more of
     ?<variable>=<value> 
such as
     ?format=color
In this way you can specify number of pages, format, duplex, feeder, 
and what part of the page to scan.

10) With
      SHOW=FALSE
the user interface will not show (unless necessary). Often, parameters 
such as FORMAT will take place only if show=false (depends on scanner).

11) In AnzioWin, if you do a scan while recording a macro, the macro will 
capture all the scanning parameters for you, into the macro. This can be a 
good way to learn syntax.

12) There is support for manual duplexing, in which the user is prompted 
to scan the back sides, and the program will merge them into the correct 
order.

13) There are options for scanning a set number of pages, or as many as 
are in the feeder, or open-ended.

14) Scans can be uploaded via Zmodem, FTP, SFTP, etc., to a specified 
location and name on the host.

This is all available in the current version (16.2) of AnzioWin and also 
the current version (3.3) of the freestanding Print Wizard.

More is on the way. I've recently been working with an Epson workgroup 
scanner (GT-S50) which can scan sheet-fed, duplex (double-sided) in one 
pass, at about 20 pages per minute. For a particular project, I needed to 
scan about 100 sheets, both sides, doing some rotation and cropping that 
was different for front-side and back-side. Scanning was 200 DPI gray, 
stored into multiple PDF files. The resulting files have been copied to my 
iPad for viewing - they're sheet music for a show I'm playing.

Now I'm working on adding a threshold-to-white, so some bleed-through from 
the back side goes away. Also working on JPG compression within PDF, for 
smaller files. Also working on making Print Wizard's previewer good enough 
to use for this purpose on a touch-capable TabletPC, as an alternative to 
the iPad. Then I can use a headset and Windows' speech recognition, so I 
can tell it when to turn pages. Sweet!

I'm always eager to discuss ideas for improvement, or answer any other 
questions.

Regards,
....Bob Rasmussen,   President,   Rasmussen Software, Inc.

personal e-mail: ras at anzio.com
 company e-mail: rsi at anzio.com
          voice: (US) 503-624-0360 (9:00-6:00 Pacific Time)
            fax: (US) 503-624-0760
            web: http://www.anzio.com
 street address: Rasmussen Software, Inc.
                 10240 SW Nimbus, Suite L9
                 Portland, OR  97223  USA