[sane-devel] Network scanners

[rozelak at volny.cz]

I really appologise for multiple sending, I forgot to fill subject :-(.
Plese ignore my previous post ...

On Tuesday 18 of March 2008, Johannes Meixner wrote:
> Hello,
>
> On Mar 14 16:33 rozelak at volny.cz wrote (shortened):
> > I would like to ask, how network scanners are supported.
>
> ...
>
> > I am interested, as we have Canon iR2200 copy/printer/scanner
> > (huge) machine in my work, and I would like to know if it
> > can be accessed from linux (or SANE in general).
>
> I think that the question is whether a SANE driver
> (i.e. a SANE backend) is really needed to use it with Linux
> or whether one can use this device also stand-alone.
>
> Normally one can scan directly on a big and fat network
> printer scanner copier and specify scan resolution
> and image file format (e.g. tiff, PDF, ...) and all the
> other scanning options directly at the device and in
> particular one can specify an e-mail address to which
> the device will send the scanned image file so that one
> will receive the scanned image as a mail attachment
> according to what was specified as image file format.
>
> This way of operating is usually much more convenient
> for the user because when you would use a SANE backend
> you would have to specify all the scanning parameters
> on your workstation by using a SANE frontend.
> But your workstation is normally far away from the network
> scanner device so that you would have to place a sheet in
> the network scanner and post a big red note on the network
> scanner that you are currently using it for scanning so that
> others know what is going on and don't remove your sheet,
> then walk back to your workstation to specify the scanning
> parameters and start the scan and finally you would have
> to walk again to the network scanner to fetch your sheet
> and remove your note and walk back to your workstation.
> Of course this way of operating is much better for the
> physical health of the company staff ;-)
>

Yes, you are absolutely right! Operating scanner as you described is
absolutely silly ans useless.

Originally I thought about starting SANE (through a frontend) and telling
it that images will be received from network scanner (of given type)
sitting on given address. Then go to scanner and scan images one after
another (with scanning parameters set on the scanner, as you wrote).
SANE will wait and receive the scanned images as they go through the
scanner. When I return back to the computer, there will be images opened
in the frontent, ready to be saved to disc (or already saved in some
temporary location ...).
OK, there are some issues about "stealing" scanned images to others,
when I would start SANE and another person starts scanning earlier than
me. The question also is, is such solution is possible (may not be supported
by network scanner machines).

I ask, as just recently I tried to scan something, but I was not able
to get images from the scanner (e.g. through e-mail, as you wrote).
It seems that this e-mailing is not configured from some reasons, but
I am not able to change it. I enden by deleting the images from scanner
and asked someone to scan it for me to another day. I know that people
using Windows have an application which allows a download of scanned
images from the machine. But I do not know details about the app - should
I try to get some more info?

I was just thinking, if when it is possible to access scanner from Windows,
if it is also possible (or planned) to access it from linux in the same
(or preferrably better ;-)) way. If such possibility is still as silly
as you described earlier, just write it to me and forget it ;-)

Thank you,
Dan

>
> Kind Regards
> Johannes Meixner
> --
> SUSE LINUX Products GmbH, Maxfeldstrasse 5, 90409 Nuernberg, Germany
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