Scanner Server? 9
chuckw asks: "Does anyone know if there are any open source projects that are working on building a scanner server and client? I have a pretty nice document scanner plugged into my Linux server and I want to give everyone in my house access to it, much like a regular document printer. Network bandwidth isn't really an issue (100baseT). I personally would like to start such a project but I don't want to duplicate anyone's effort. I've looked all over and can't find any currently running projects doing this. If this isn't currently being done, do you want to join the project? Do you see any major technical issues preventing such a project? "
Re:Curious (Score:1)
Compare this to printing: what would you rather have (in an ideal situation), a printer queue on each workstation, or one centralized one on the computer that is connected to the printer?
Re:Curious (Score:1)
Of course, the way I scan usually involves having to reset the page since it is crooked, cropped, etc., so I would end up running back and forth between the remote computer and scanner too much.
Also, if the "server" is a computer somebody else is using, you wouldn't have to kick them off everytime you wanted to scan something.
And its late at night here, so maybe I'm missing the point, but isn't the server-client scanning setup closer to the single queue on the centralized computer example than the queue on each workstation, or is that what you were trying to say? If it is, then then how is a seperate queue per workstation better/possible? If none of that made sense, don't worry it's probably me, I think I'm going to bed now.
Re:Curious (Score:1)
Re:Curious (Score:1)
Re:Curious (Score:2)
Well, that depends. If your scanning a million different documents without an ADV, it won't work. Others have pointed out the problems. (contrast, diagnal...)
But be creative. My scanner is scsi, and my main machine doesn't have a scsi adaptor. (Accually it does, but it is wide scsi, and scanners ahve a bad repuatation for tieing up the scsi bus which isn't a good idea on a multitasking OS) I put the scanner on the old 386 (which seems to keep getting new functions) and then used network scanning to work.
At one place I lived we had several computers scattered throughout the house. We didn't need many scanners though, network scanning [would have] allowed us to preview scan on the slow machine with the scanner (a macII), and then use a faster machine once we had things straight. As it was we continually ran out of memory and harddrive space on a machine that spent more time processing the data then scanning. If I had done the final scans upstairs it would have been faster overall.
Curious (Score:2)
Perhaps I've missed something... but I don't know what. I could see if it was one scanner in the middle of a bunch of computers -- perhaps in a computer lab -- but over a whole house?
Please enlighten me.
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SANE (Score:2)
Re:SANE (Score:3)
saned [mostang.com] runs as a server on the computer with the scanner, and then the clients all use SANE with the sane-net [mostang.com] driver (the webpage calls it a backend, but I'm pretty sure it is like a driver) to access the remote scanner. A list of platforms that SANE supports is listed here [mostang.com], and there are also clients available for several other platforms, such as windows (which is likely to be in use if it is a home network), and even a CGI frontend to allow access over a web browser if there isn't a dedicated client available for your OS of choice. The list of related projects such as the mentioned clients can be found here [mostang.com], and SANE's website is here [mostang.com].
Re:SANE (Score:4)
I have never used a client for any other platform than Linux. I didn't even knew there were other clients. Could be useful...- ----------------------------
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