Camera to trigger with 5V. The cheapest and easiest way.

[tarakan114]

Hello.
I am a community college student from Frederick MD. I love math, physics and chemistry. I feel very stressed from soft sciences. I need a quick and easy way to digitize the books so I can control+F through them.

I have done some experiments with automatic page flipping and found a reliable mechanism to do this operation. Not sure if I want to disclose it before i get a credit for it and present is somewhere. Very few moving parts and no jams. No precision parts. My friend called it an AK-47 of page flipping. Hopefully this concept stays around for as long as the AKs did. A microcontroller is used to monitor the end switches and synchronize/delay two mechanisms.

Even though I can program microcontrollers, I am not very tech savvy.

I may need a camera or two cameras that would get images of pages to my computer. Can web cams do that? What software do I use to get a nice stream of photos of the full resolution into the OCR software? How do I make it work on Win7? I would like to follow someone's footsteps.

I am also considering a remote trigger for a camera. How is that done the cheapest way? I am not sure why everyone is talking about CHDK and changing the program inside the camera. Usually sketchy internet directions that are given for many items at once don't work. I would like someone to tell me their experience step by step. I want a specific model of a camera and what was done to it to give it a remote trigger. 5V would be great because it is a microcontroller voltage and since my page flipper uses a microcontroller, it may also be used to trigger a camera.

Cannon Hacking Development Kit looks a little too complex to me. Plus why am I suppose to buy expensive Cannons? Hacking the actual shutter button would be a little bit too brutal. Plus SMD electronics aren't good for that.

So what am I shopping for?

Thank you.
Vladimir Tolskiy

[Tim]

Hello.

Hi Vladimir, I can't answer all your questions, but there are threads about all of them here. I'll answer what I can

I am a community college student from Frederick MD. I love math, physics and chemistry. I feel very stressed from soft sciences. I need a quick and easy way to digitize the books so I can control+F through them.

control-F searching is one of the greatest things about e-books for sure.

I have done some experiments with automatic page flipping and found a reliable mechanism to do this operation. Not sure if I want to disclose it before i get a credit for it and present is somewhere. Very few moving parts and no jams. No precision parts. My friend called it an AK-47 of page flipping. Hopefully this concept stays around for as long as the AKs did. A microcontroller is used to monitor the end switches and synchronize/delay two mechanisms.

We'd love to hear about it when you're ready

I may need a camera or two cameras that would get images of pages to my computer. Can web cams do that? What software do I use to get a nice stream of photos of the full resolution into the OCR software? How do I make it work on Win7? I would like to follow someone's footsteps.

The short answer is that webcams don't have enough resolution or good enough optics for OCR. Basically you can just take the images from the SD card from a camera however, and load them into the OCR software directly if you want to, or you can use a variety of software discussed on these forum pages first. Examples are Scan Tailor and Bookscanwizard. You may also be interested in this thread on the overall process: viewtopic.php?f=3&t=462
There are many methods discussed here because many people find different ways to suit their needs. Have a look at other threads to see other options.

I am also considering a remote trigger for a camera. How is that done the cheapest way? I am not sure why everyone is talking about CHDK and changing the program inside the camera. Usually sketchy internet directions that are given for many items at once don't work. I would like someone to tell me their experience step by step. I want a specific model of a camera and what was done to it to give it a remote trigger. 5V would be great because it is a microcontroller voltage and since my page flipper uses a microcontroller, it may also be used to trigger a camera.

Cannon Hacking Development Kit looks a little too complex to me. Plus why am I suppose to buy expensive Cannons? Hacking the actual shutter button would be a little bit too brutal. Plus SMD electronics aren't good for that.

CHDK is used because most cheap cameras do not have an external port that allows for remote triggering. CHDK is a software solution to allow 5V triggering on Cannon cameras that support it. CHDK is a little tricky, but for supported cameras it can work. Another option is to use bike brake cables to manually push the shutter button. That's probably about the cheapest you can get since you can probably salvage a used bike nearly for free. You may also be interested in this thread on camera triggering:
viewtopic.php?f=1&t=910

So what am I shopping for?

Depends on what meets your needs and skills best, I guess.

[tarakan114]

I am about to buy an expensive powershot.
I would like to see the USB hookup for the trigger.

[Tim]

I am about to buy an expensive powershot.
I would like to see the USB hookup for the trigger.

The camera triggering thread I linked has info on that, and more info is in various posts throughout the forum. That's the downside of a forum, stuff gets buried. If the triggering thread doesn't have what you need, then try searching the forum for things like trigger or remote.