Why are there no scanners that take a snapshot like a camera? Or is there?

Question

Scanning

Sometimes, when there is no scanner at hand, I just take a picture with a camera. It turns out not very good. no paper pressure, suboptimal camera position and lighting, etc.

And now, here, I'm sitting, scanning a mountain of papers with an ordinary CCD scanner and straining how slowly it scans.

And then it dawns on me: why not make a scanner based on a camera? Well, maybe it will be thicker, all sorts of mirrors may need to be built in there, but the profit is obvious!

So I think: has no one guessed so far?

Answer 1

Such a device exists. They are called a planetary or book scanner.

Answer 2

HP Color LaserJet Pro M275a / M275nw
MFP, where an 8MP camera acts as a scanner.

Answer 3

Firstly, these really exist, and secondly, there are “ordinary” scanners that scan very quickly; if you are scanning not a book, but separate sheets, then many models also have autofeed. We have a Xerox WCP 128 in our office, I looked - it has a scanning speed of 50 pages per minute + autofeed in its characteristics.

Answer 4

The profit is not obvious, because. distortion will appear, the thickness will increase.

Answer 5

I remember somewhere on the net (as if not on Habré))) I read about the experience of introducing all kinds of public services in Tatarstan. There slipped a mention of a similar device. I don’t know how self-made it was, but it seemed that the unit consisted of a DSLR and a system unit packed in a rather big box a la infokiosk. With its help, citizens "presented" the necessary documents to the system. Do not force people to wait until the flatbed scanner rolls ...
So the idea is not new and quite feasible almost on the knee.

Answer 6

These are not scanners, but photocopiers. In analog form, such cameras were used everywhere in book and map publishing to produce blueprints long before the advent of scanners. There were special cameras - for example, in the Cartography PKO there is still a unit the size of a room for photographing maps. So the idea is not something that is not new, but even older than the "classic" scanners.

Answer 7

There is.
At first, those who did, managed to make a scanner based on cameras, entered the market of planetary scanners (planetary scanner, = orbital scanner) - those very expensive devices for book depositories. And there they competed with them.
Then it came to the homemade craftsmen.
For example, the simplest is such a retractable vertical plastic with a support for a book and a holder for a compact or a phone with a camera. Or, here's a glamorous analogue: www.swish.com/details/xcanex/
There were many DIY threads, but recently many have merged into one big thread on the platform
www.diybookscanner.org/
And participate in improvements, offshoots from the basic installation.
Watch the video there on the main page.
Basic installation is manual - with manual page turning.
I also advise you to visit their forum ... www.diybookscanner.org/forum/
But most of all I liked the fifth generation of the Frankenstein book-robo-scanner)
www.youtube.com/watch?v=kvM-tjrS2-U
DIY Full Auto Book Scanner 5
latest generation from his series, 9, switched to airflow page turning.

Answer 8

The scanner gives an image without distortion (swelling) that lenses (aberrations) give.
A scanner based on a camera - can you imagine an A4 size matrix at least :), and its price (FullFrame matrix diagonally 35mm), and how to create focus millimeter to millimeter at least . So a small matrix and an optical system that transmits light as geometrically as evenly as possible
Or make a sensor (what is in the scanner) in size A4 - what are the costs, and even lenses are used there - in fact, "direct" transmission of light reflected from the sheet to the "pixel" there will be no matrix
On Habré there was an article about flat lenses - I don’t know how much it will reduce distortion

Answer 9

ATIZ book photo scanners have been on the Russian market since 2006. There are many more or less successful analogues. Here is an analytical article from the same site about how you can scan books in principle.