Featuring the latest in robotics and 3D technology the BFS-Auto is a lightning fast, hi-definition scanner that just might change the playing field.
Developed at the noted Ishikawa Oku Laboratory at the University of Tokyo the BFS-Auto digitally scans books at an amazing rate of 250 pages a minute without modifying the book by cutting !
Let’s repeat: it scans 250 pages a minute in hi-definition without damaging the book. No more hands in the picture, no more fuzzy pages and no more destruction. In fact the scanner has the ability to “restore a captured image which is distorted because of page curling to a flat original document image by using the captured image and the obtained 3D deformation. This system’s new improvement to processing speed allows real-time restoration for capturing books.”
Of course, this is a prototype and who knows if the cost of production would make ownership prohibitive for many institutions and universities but it is out there and in a few years perhaps it will become a standard piece of equipment for libraries and antiquarian bookstores around the world.
The scanner is the latest incarnation from the Ishikawa Oku Laboratory. book patrol covered an earlier version in 2010, Book Flipping, Scanning.
Book-Scanning Robot Reads 250 Pages Per Minute: Mashable
Previously on Book Patrol:
Digitize Your Own Books: How to Build Your Own Automated Scanner
The Hands of Google