DanyQ is making a book scanner inspired by a deli slicer.
Deli Slicer
DanyQ’s Book Scanner [v2 is pictured, v3 is nearing completion —ed]
Unfortunately, most PDF readers don’t let you slice and dice PDFs with a dexterity befitting this glorious machine.
In particular, the most trivial of questions—do I have all the pages? Are the pages lined up?—are exceedingly difficult to answer with conventional PDF readers and image viewers.
This afternoon, I made a prototype that enables some fluid, virtual, slicing of PDFs.
Thumbnail grid on the left, enlargement on the right.
Hat tip to Dave on arranging the thumbnail grid with the same aspect ratio as the page (more on this in a second).
Hover over a thumbnail to see an overlay of the selected page and the hover page.
Hover over the enlargement to enlarge all of the thumbnails at that part of the image.
Click/drag the enlargement to reconstruct a complete page out of all of the thumbnails (confusing feature, but depends on the aforementioned aspect ratio trick).
On the drive back from LA, Bret and I were talking about in-process documentation and screencasts. I tried to make a stream-of-consciousness screencast to show myself using this interface, and how I was thinking about it. Even though I wanted it to be casual, it took four takes before I had something even vaguely comprehensible. In any case:
Your correspondent,
R.M.O.