Like any learned individual, [Justin] has a whole mess of books. Not being tied to the dead-tree format of bound paper, and with e-readers popping up everywhere, he decided to build a low-cost book scanner so an entire library can be carried in a his pocket. If that’s not enough, there’s also a complementary book image processor to assemble the individual pictures into a paginated tome.
The build is pretty simple – just a little bit of black craft board for the camera mount and adjustable book cradle. [Justin] ended up using the CHDK software for the Cannon PowerShot camera to hack in a remote trigger. The scanner can manage to photograph 600 pages an hour, although that would massively increase if he ever moves up to a 2-camera setup.
We’re wondering if OCR could be applied to this build – it’s nice to have an image of a page on your computer, but searchable text would be amazing. If you have experience or a story about a massive OCR job, be sure to leave a note in the comments. Check out the videos below for a walk-through of the build and a demo of the operations.
