In terms of compression for scanned notes, I haven't found anything that comes close to what even an older version of Adobe Acrobat yields, due to the use of the JBIG2 codec. Has anybody found any way to compress PDF files with JBIG2 on Linux/Mac? It's pretty much the only reason I have to find a Windows machine with Acrobat installed a couple of times a year, to postprocess a batch of scanned PDFs.
Compressing and enhancing hand-written notes (2016)
41–50 of 78 posts
Re: Compressing and enhancing hand-written notes (2016)
#42This reminds me of my time in university, when I saved all my lecture notes as DjVu [1] files. It's a great file format for space-efficient archiving of scans like that, with a bit of scripted preprocessing. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DjVu
I like the idea, but DjVu seems to be very proprietary / single vendor and not in widespread use. This has made me reluctant to use it for archival purposes (vs say PDF, which has its own issues, but feels slightly more future proof to me).
I think PDF can cover pretty much the same ground with JBig and Jpeg2k. (And I believe archive.org is doing that.) But I don't know of any open source code to do the segmentation / encoding. (You have to split the bitmap from the background for jbig / jpeg encoding.)
Re: Compressing and enhancing hand-written notes (2016)
#43Earlier quoted context omitted.
I have found that my Galaxy Note 2014 is pretty much hands-down the best note taking tablet in my opinion. It's better than the crap that Microsoft and Apple are trying to hawk off. It doesn't have as many fancy apps but for _strictly_ note taking, sharing notes via email, and book reading, it's pretty awesome. I just wish its price would come down. It's still full price from four years ago :| and even getting more e…
You are referring to the 10.1 tablet? I know its not the same but I had a Note4 and was pleased with its note taking ability. I imagine that with the extra screen real-estate the tablet was even better. It looks like they are $453 on Newegg! I agree that does seem crazy for an old device. If you can put up with a used device there are two on swappa for around $200 https://swappa.com/buy/samsung-galaxy-note-101-2014-w…
Yes, this is exactly!
However, I prefer the Wifi-only model. I neither need nor want cell service on my tablet. Not only that, but cellular providers end up installing complete garbage for their software.
I recently broke my first device. I bought a new one that was advertised Wifi-only. The received device was branded for Verizon and was literally and completely unusable without a Verizon SIM card. I ended up getting it replaced with a T-Mobile one which... while isn't not completely unusable, there's still tons of crapware from T-Mobile that I cannot uninstall.
It makes me really sad.
I'll have to check out your link at home. Thanks!
Re: Compressing and enhancing hand-written notes (2016)
#44On the top image, I see that the back side of the page has clearly leaked through. In my experiences with scanning paper, I found a trick that essentially eliminates any visible backside content: Using a flatbed scanner, I would scan with the lid open, and the room darkened. The worst thing to do is to scan with the lid closed, with a lid that has a white background. This would increase the reflection from the backsi…
You achieve the same effect with a black paper on top of the document you’re scanning, or in between the pages if it’s a book. As a bonus you can leave the light on :)
Re: Compressing and enhancing hand-written notes (2016)
#45Great job with that. I've only just started taking notes by hand once again, after being keyboard-only for many years. In your scenario, since you have assigned "scribes" taking the notes, you might be able to streamline the process with a "smart pen." There are several on the market. The one I got as a hand-me-down from a family member lets you write dozens of pages of notes, then Bluetooth them to a smartphone app…
I have found that my Galaxy Note 2014 is pretty much hands-down the best note taking tablet in my opinion. It's better than the crap that Microsoft and Apple are trying to hawk off. It doesn't have as many fancy apps but for _strictly_ note taking, sharing notes via email, and book reading, it's pretty awesome. I just wish its price would come down. It's still full price from four years ago :| and even getting more e…
Why is the Galaxy Note 2014 good for note taking? What app(s) do you use for note taking? What's bad about Microsoft's and Apple's offerings?
Re: Compressing and enhancing hand-written notes (2016)
#46I wonder if it'd be possible to do automatic detection and removal of notebook lines via an FFT (frequency domain) transform.
Re: Compressing and enhancing hand-written notes (2016)
#47interesting, i was working on something similar, (get color palette from an image).
Re: Compressing and enhancing hand-written notes (2016)
#48I have an observation about scanning documents that results in good quality and smaller files, but I can't satisfactorily explain why it works. Consider these two cases: (1) Scan document at very high resolution as a JPG and then use a third-party program (like Photoshop or whatever) to re-encode the JPG at your preferred low resolution. (2) Scan document at your preferred low resolution as a JPG straight away. Don't…
My guess slightly different: manufacturers are deliberately choosing the JPG encoding profile that gets them good quality in worst cases. Which also happens to get fast encoding and bigger files. Their motivation is simple. One case of negative user experience outweigh a thousand positive ones and hurts their reputation hard.
Re: Compressing and enhancing hand-written notes (2016)
#49In terms of compression for scanned notes, I haven't found anything that comes close to what even an older version of Adobe Acrobat yields, due to the use of the JBIG2 codec. Has anybody found any way to compress PDF files with JBIG2 on Linux/Mac? It's pretty much the only reason I have to find a Windows machine with Acrobat installed a couple of times a year, to postprocess a batch of scanned PDFs.
`German and Swiss regulators have subsequently (in 2015) disallowed the JBIG2 encoding in archival documents.[19]`
Re: Compressing and enhancing hand-written notes (2016)
#50A simpler way of achieving the same thing is to duplicate the layer, blur the top layer heavily, and then set it to "divide".
interesting trick, thanks for sharing ! [edit] Quick test here : https://imgur.com/a/6xOz1
I think that test illustrates it'll take quite a lot more to achieve what the tool in the article did...