Image Scanning in PHP - Complicated

[complex05]

Hello,

I have a potential client who is looking to develop some web based software for his orthotics company. He wants his software to be able to do this:

1. Click a "scan" button
2. Scan button sends command to scanner over the web, and scans the image
3. From there, the image is uploaded onto the web and displayed on the page

Is this possible? Possibly using sockets? The only thing I don't know how to do is to send commands directly to the scanner or to the server, and have the scanner/server send the image back to my script.

Any help is appreciated - if you know any SDKs or APIs that can this that would be great aswell.

Thanks!

Barry

[ober]

Unless the scanner is connected directly to the server, you can't do it.  You'll have to use some form of client-side scripting/programming.

[micah1701]

As Ober said, you would need some client side program to connect to the scanner.  If your going to make the user install another program - its easier to just have them use their scanner's software to save the image then use a basic HTML upload input form field.

[Daniel0]

You can do it remotely if you can control the scanner from the command line.

[Barand]

If it's on a company intranet, and the scanner has an IP address then, maybe...?

You'd have to read the scanner manual to find out its capabilities.

[complex05]

Well we want it to be able to to link to any user's local scanner, without using upload. I know it sounds stupid, from my perspective, there is nothing wrong with scanning and image then uploading it, but my stupid client WANTS it to be one step, online. I have to give him an answer by tomorrow, weather or not it's possible to do this web based.

[acdx]

Not possible without special applications or browser plugins installed by the user.

[roopurt18]

Your client is probably trying to make the process as user friendly as possible, which is good.  You could try posting a simple walk-through on the site to help novice users with the concept of scanning and uploading an image.

When he asks why it can't be done, ask him how happy he'd be if a website took over his computer hardware.

[printf]

My question is...

Where is the image or paper coming from that is going to be scanned! pressing a scanner button is most times easy on both Linux or Windows, I just don't understand where the document is coming from. There are web based OCR(s) that can scan PDF(s), image(s) and text, scansoft even has COM based API to access digital scanner functions via the web. But all that is not very logical, I mean it's hard to handle paper documents without doing it by hand. I would have a look at a document manager, something like SYNTREX's old Gemini system, now (Olivetti), you can still find them for a very cheap price and they do this really well. I saw one on ebay a few months, that sold for only 400 dollars, The only problem with them, is that they are really big. I have one, it really cool how that robotic arm takes paper documents from the storage cabinet and loads it into the scanner, then when the scan is done it returns the document to the storage cabinet.

me!

[acdx]

printf:

1. Find appropriate material to scan
2. Take the sheet of paper in your hand
3. Lift the scanner cover
4. Place the paper on the glass facing down
5. Close the scanner cover