[sane-devel] automated, multiple scanner use

abel deuring adeuring at gmx.net
Tue Apr 14 14:57:16 UTC 2009


On 14.04.2009 14:24, Rewald, Boris wrote:
> Dear list,
> 
>  
> 
> I new on this list and the “sane field”. Thus, I have to ask some basic
> questions first.
> 
>  
> 
> I’m looking for an method to use 10-20 usb flatbed scanners with one
> computer (possibly connected via an usb-hub) and by setting automatic
> scan intervals (for example: once scan an hour per scanner).
> 
>  
> 
> Do you think this is possible? What software do I need?

The most straightforward way is probably a simple cronscript which
invokes scanimage.

There might exist though a problem: I am not very familiar with the
internals of libusb (used by most if not all backends for USB scanners),
so I might be wrong, but I suspect that the device string for scanimage
(as in "scanimage -d fujitsu:002:003") might change when you
disconnect/reconnect a scanner. In other words: make sure that a given
device string always identifies the same scanner. (I am sure that other
people reading this list can give you better founded advice about the
"stability" of these device numbers.)

If a cronscript calling scanimage is, erm, "too simple", you might
consider to write a Perl or Python script. For both languages exist Sane
bindings. A simple scan script can be as small as 20 or 30 lines (at
least in Python), allowing you for example to easily create "meaningful"
filenames or to store some interesting metadata in another file for each
scan.

Abel




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