[sane-devel] Additional frame types in Sane 1

[m. allan noah]

Quite a few recent scanners have the ability to output jpeg data,
including most fujitsus. I have been contracted to extend sane to
support this capability. I can keep the modifications private, or i
can try to get them included in sane proper (which i prefer).

Therefore, I have reviewed the sane-devel mailing lists for the past
several years, and tried to come up with a plan based on those
discussions. Many of them center around Sane2, and proposals such a
Mime or Textual frame-type determination. Given the speed at which
Sane2 has moved, (most of these discussions are 5 years old!), and the
relative complexity of those approaches, i am suggesting a more
trivial alternative, specific new frame types.

In all, i found mention of only 5 additional types of data sane does
not handle well:

JPEG, IR, ICC profile, EXIF data, and compressed TIF (G4 fax).

Really, it seems like only the first three get repeated mentions in
the archives. I dont know much about ICC, so my proposal is therefore
quite simple. Rather than continue to wait for sane2, i am prepared to
extend sane1 with 2 new choices: SANE_FRAME_JPEG and SANE_FRAME_RGBI.
I would try to leave enough framework for others to add ICC and FAX
support.

yes, this will require that a front-end would have to be updated to
understand this type of data. I can extend scanimage and scanadf
(though i probably wont support all the possible conversions). it will
also require (in the case of compression) that the front-end be able
to deal with variable length data.

comments, requests, flames? :)

allan

-- 
"The truth is an offense, but not a sin"