The John L. Dagg Resource Center for the Blind and Visually Impaired

11/28/2021

Our Story I was about 9 years old when my parents first noticed that I could not see perfectly. A trip to the eye doctor tried to fit me for glasses, but prescription lenses wouldn’t correct my vision. A parade of ophthalmologists and specialists finally diagnosed me with Stargardt’s Disease. Th...

11/24/2021

1. When books are scanned and converted to text, there are always errors or "scannos" (See Glossary) that result. Bookshare volunteers detect and correct errors and formatting so that books are usable with a variety of assistive devices--from screen readers to digital braille devices. A computer wit...

11/20/2021

I am putting the DIY book scanner project on the back burner for a while. I am just not able to get the results I am hoping for. I think it is possible, but its going to take a good bit more tweaking.
Meanwhile I decided to get a new flatbed scanner. I got the Plustek OpticBook 4900. It is so much faster than my old flatbed. Its not as fast as my Perl overhead camera, but it produces better results.

Drag and Drop Files Conveniently-BookMaker can quickly help you organize the same topic data of different materials. Simply drag and drop to insert files or images. Files can be easily selected and moved to the desire location.

11/20/2021

updated the web site a little this week

Blind Ministry: Helping the Blind to See the Light of Christ

04/09/2021

I need to build something like this

02/19/2021

02/16/2021

As we build the Dagg Center Book Scanner, several components need to be designed. Today I have been thinking about how to hold the pages of the book flat, as the two cameras take a picture of each page. I have read that a 100 degree angle works best. My idea is to 3D print a custom bracket to hold the glass platen, and mount it to a vertical stand using a metal drawer slide. That way, you can slide the platen up and down to turn each page of the book. The 3mm glass can fit within a 2" fl**ge and Lord willing, hold it in place. I may need to do a similar bracket on the front, if it needs more rigidity and something to push up and down on. Here is my conceptual model.

02/12/2021

One step closer to our book scanner. I finally figured out a way to remotely trigger the two cameras connected to the Raspberry Pi via usb. 🙂 📷 📷 I am not a programmer, but I learned enough to write a couple of shell scripts to send commands to chdkptp. 🖥️ I can now run this script and trigger both cameras by simply hitting the spacebar. Hitting the spacebar again triggers another two shots, through the whole book. The images are saved to the cambers' SD car for retrieval and post-processing. Now I need to build a cradle to hold the book, a movable glass platen to hold the pages down, and a rig to aim to two cameras, one for each facing page. Like I said, I am not a programmer, but I am an even worse carpenter, so this should be fun. 🛠️ lol

02/02/2021

I think I was getting a little ahead of myself and the learning curve, trying to get two cameras going at once on a make-shift angled cradle. So, I backed up to a single camera for experimentation with focusing. Scrap PVC comes in handy. :) The Raspberry Pi is also now in a cool case with a tiny little fan.

01/27/2021

Prototype for my DIY Book Scanner rig. I have two Cannon PowerShot Elph 180 cameras, powered by AC adapters, attached with bicycle mounts to the walker my wife got from the hospital after her recent back surgery. Praise the Lord she doesn't need it anymore. The book sits on a cardboard cradle I built from a banana box. See why I don't like throwing stuff away? :) The cameras are running CHDK (Cannon Hacker Development Kit), which is open source firmware to interface with the devices via USB. So far, I have been able to get the Raspberry Pi to talk to one camera at a time, over a Remote Desktop network connection from my laptop and successfully snap pictures. I still need to figure out some things like focusing, how to get the two cameras to trigger simultaneously, and some other things. I may need to learn Python to write a script, I do not know, but right now I am pretty happy. The proof-of-concept works!

01/25/2021

Got my Raspberry Pi 4, plugged it all in, installed the Operating System, and successfully logged into it over SSH through the ethernet connection to our home network. The next hurdle is to get it talking to the two cameras over USB using CHDK as we continue to build our DIY book scanner.

01/14/2021

Doing this

Have you ever wondered about scanning entire books quickly and easily? Especially when traveling, it can be cumbersome to carry large numbers of papers and b...