[HN Gopher] Show HN: OpenScan - open-source document scanner app
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       Show HN: OpenScan - open-source document scanner app
        
       Author : mighty3xodus
       Score  : 137 points
       Date   : 2021-01-03 14:57 UTC (8 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (github.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (github.com)
        
       | jabberwcky wrote:
       | Quick take: this is staying on my phone, great effort :)
       | 
       | Notes:
       | 
       | - Doesn't keep flash permanently on (like CamScanner)
       | 
       | - Skew correction looks maybe worse quality (than CamScanner)
       | 
       | - Totally fine for at least 80% of the things I'd use CamScanner
       | for. Super well done!
        
         | mighty3xodus wrote:
         | Your suggestions are noted. Thank you for your feedback!
        
       | quuuux wrote:
       | Looks like a really great start! Just gave the app a quick test
       | and the basics seem to be working fine.
       | 
       | Apart from automatic cropping and perspective distortion
       | correction others have mentioned already, the white margins of
       | the exported PDFs are IMHO quite a bit too large. In fact, as the
       | app is a document scanner, I'd not expect any border at all.
        
       | ssheth wrote:
       | NAPS2 (https://www.naps2.com/) is also a similar open-source app
       | with OCR built in.
        
         | rkagerer wrote:
         | What OCR engine does it use and is it any good? (I see
         | tesseract mentioned in the dependencies?)
        
       | alexmcc81 wrote:
       | I see there is an F-Droid compatible repo linked. Is there a
       | reason it has not been submitted to F-Droid proper? Sounds like a
       | perfect addition to the default repo.
        
         | mighty3xodus wrote:
         | True. Have started the process. Hopefully it builds without
         | much problems.
        
       | mawise wrote:
       | I don't see anything on the readme about OCR. In the PDF
       | conversion, does OpenScan do any OCR? I guess I expect this from
       | a document scanning app these days, but I don't really know the
       | space. Are there any good open-source OCR libraries?
        
         | bane wrote:
         | I would recommend https://github.com/PaddlePaddle/PaddleOCR
         | over the default tesseract. It seems to do a better job these
         | days and uses more modern approaches.
        
         | pedro2 wrote:
         | Tesseract? The page does not refer OCR anywhere, neither does
         | it appear on its issues.
        
         | mighty3xodus wrote:
         | There are no OCR capabilities. Just managed to get a good
         | cropper implemented with perspective cropping. There were very
         | few options of which only one was viable.
        
       | BorisEm wrote:
       | A related open source library for iOS.
       | https://github.com/wetransfer/wescan
        
         | gregod wrote:
         | Btw: The Apple Notes application has this functionality built-
         | in if you are just interested in scanning.
        
           | twobitshifter wrote:
           | And in the files app, long tapping gives the option to scan a
           | document, which works great. I'm trying to retain fewer
           | pieces of paper and this is super convenient.
        
       | pricci wrote:
       | I like that you are using Flutter. Will give a look at the code.
       | 
       | The image quality is not good, but probably due to my camera. CS
       | CamScanner gives me better results but I don't trust it.
        
       | adontz wrote:
       | User Experience: This app does not open scan dialog immediately,
       | annoying.
       | 
       | Features: This app does not fix perspective distortion.
       | 
       | Office Lens
       | (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.microsoft....)
       | is so much better, I get rectangular image without any hints, to
       | say nothing about manually selecting anything.
       | 
       | Office Lens really creates this https://play-
       | lh.googleusercontent.com/AgErNUVn_Jg41jSQO2p2CF... from this
       | https://play-lh.googleusercontent.com/yv6eUY6EyR8x2Hd6NB1SBW...
       | and that is amazing.
        
         | solarkraft wrote:
         | Office Lens is very good, but huge (> 100MB) and ... pretty
         | proprietary and with some UX quirks. I'd greatly appreciate a
         | FOSS version of it.
        
         | hawski wrote:
         | I always wanted a tool to place a polygon (even just four
         | corners) and ability to set an aspect ratio (custom or preset
         | like 4:3, 16:9 and A-series) and have perspective fixed image
         | or just move vertices around (just like you expect by having a
         | textured polygon). I would like to have this tool as a part of
         | GIMP and a standard around light image editing tools like many
         | viewers are. Perspective correction tools are either designed
         | for photography or I don't really know how to use them. When
         | you have this you can add edge detection and you're almost done
         | to do this automatically.
        
       | deknos wrote:
       | is it able to store the document somewhere via a protocol? that
       | would be really helpful, perhaps with tags?
        
       | vzaliva wrote:
       | It is nice start, but cropping function is pretty much not
       | working. When scanning with the phone the page is rarely properly
       | alighned ans cropping step should be automatic (like with
       | CamScan). Even if performing it manually under perfect conditions
       | (white page on back background) it fails to detect page
       | boundaries. Screenshot:
       | https://www.dropbox.com/s/cpvdidugiy7n3lk/Screenshot_2021010...
        
       | gman83 wrote:
       | What are you using for state management besides setState() ?
        
         | mighty3xodus wrote:
         | None. Any suggestions? Because most of the state manipulation
         | is done in a single screen.
        
       | renewiltord wrote:
       | Very cool. I currently use PhotoScan. I'll give this a shot.
        
       | nimbius wrote:
       | Question: can it remove printer steganographic tracking dots?
       | 
       | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Printer_steganography
        
         | mighty3xodus wrote:
         | I'm not sure that it can...
        
         | gsich wrote:
         | If your camera is low-res enough, sure.
        
       | pinusc wrote:
       | My first instinct is to compare this to OpenNoteScanner, the only
       | other quasi-functioning FOSS note scanning app.
       | 
       | The UI here is significantly more polished and better. The only
       | thing OpenNoteScanner does better is that it starts in camera
       | mode, and therefore the workflow is a bit faster.
       | 
       | However, feature-wise this is seriously lacking. I would not
       | consider using this until it can automatically crop and correct
       | perspective distortion.
       | 
       | Also the default filters are seriously lacking. Either make them
       | smarter or give the user more control (e.g. for B/W allow setting
       | the threshold, even for decently-lit documents I get poor results
       | with random black areas)
       | 
       | You can do both by integrating with OpenCV. No idea how easy it
       | is to integrate it with flutter though...
       | 
       | Anyways, good job! I'll keep following the project and might
       | consider contributing if you ever start working on these
       | features.
        
         | mighty3xodus wrote:
         | Thank you for the suggestions! I will for sure take it into
         | consideration.
         | 
         | The scanner itself is from another open source project, the
         | only one which was a viable option. I'll have to look into
         | OpenNoteScanner's scanner if I were to improve mine. Seems
         | people are happy with the edge detection it offers.
         | 
         | Thank you :)
        
       | sdwolfz wrote:
       | I've used OpenNoteScan before:
       | 
       | * https://f-droid.org/en/packages/com.todobom.opennotescanner/
       | 
       | * https://github.com/allgood/OpenNoteScanner
       | 
       | It works OK but it looks a bit old, and you need to install
       | OpenCV Manager separately, outside of F-Droid for it to work.
       | 
       | I can deal with it, but there's no way I could ever be able to
       | convince anybody else, especially non-tech people to use it.
       | 
       | This one looks like a winner in terms of UX, so I'll be using it
       | from now on, Thank you for creating it!
        
         | app4soft wrote:
         | > _I 've used OpenNoteScan before:_
         | 
         | Small correction: it is _Open Note Scanner_ app (NOT
         | _OpenNoteScan_ )
        
         | mighty3xodus wrote:
         | Thank you!
        
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       (page generated 2021-01-03 23:01 UTC)