e-mail a hand-drawn sketch

[Jim Thompson]

Jim Thompson wrote...

How long, from the moment you hold the paper in your hands,
until you hit SEND. Much more than 15 seconds. And how
many operations, clicks, etc.? That's my question.

Well. If I did a hand drawing, which I rarely do anymore, but total
time to a PDF would be hand-drawing time + 15 seconds.

If I draw from within PSpice Schematics, the more likely scenario, I
can print to a PDF quicker than you can print to a hardcopy.

So the time involved is really not much more than the time for
creating the sketch, however you do it.

Now, granted, I've owned Adobe Acrobat since v3.0. Best investment
I've ever made in software.

Maybe you need a secretary ?

...Jim Thompson

 

[Winfield Hill]

Jim Thompson wrote...

Well. If I did a hand drawing, which I rarely do anymore, but
total time to a PDF would be hand-drawing time + 15 seconds.

That's not quite what I asked, I asked the TOTAL time to the
email SEND, which includes various drilling through folders
and clicking, etc. Also, my Canon Lide FB620U scanner takes
more than 15 sec from dead stop, including startup activity.

Try it right now, starting your watch after your sketch is
finished and stopping it after hitting SEND. Let us know.

It's all waiting around and fooling around I'd like to see
shortened. What's more, 15 seconds is a long time.

If I draw from within PSpice Schematics

CAD is fine, but when lots of annotation is required, sketch
work, nothing beats a pencil. For example, this thread was
inspired when my PCB layout person made a mistake designing
a fibre-optic CAD part, and the quickest way to explain the
problem would have been a scanned pencil sketch, rather than
the awkward all-electronic method I actually used.

Now, granted, I've owned Adobe Acrobat since v3.0. Best
investment I've ever made in software.

I agree, I use the print-to-Adobe-PDF function all the time.
But once again, you have to define a file-name and location,
then enter your email program, and find the file, etc.

Maybe you need a secretary ?

When I had my company I used to hire an assistant, but they'd
rapidly grow in skill and responsibility so they were too busy
to be my personal helper, and I'd have to hire another one...
Most of the time I worked without an assistant. This was true
even when I had 40 employees, more so, actually. Another issue
was all the late-night and weekend work - one can hardly hire
enough staff to be waiting around for orders 24-7, right? Like
they say, it's lonely at the top. I did that for 16 years until
selling out. But I still do lots of daytime, early-morning and
weekend work by myself, so it would be nice if all my purchased
miracles-of-electronics assistants were more capable.

 

[Winfield Hill]

[email protected] wrote...

Win,
My curiosity piqued, I poked around a bit on the Visioneer
Strobe XP 100 scanner.

I selected the XP 100 'cause it was Google's first hit, but
apparently it's been superceded by fancier models. (The
fanciest new versions scan top and bottom of the page in
one pass.) Older models are cheap on eBay.

Convenience-wise, you don't even have to turn it on. Just
jab in your document, & the scanner wakes up and scans it.
Scanning line-art at 200dpi--perfect for hand-drawn docs--is
super-fast (<5 secs), while higher res is slower, and full-color
scans are pokey (30s).

Some users report with annoyance the possibility of
crinkling occasionally misfed pages. Though it does
well on B&W, and a serviceable job on color, it's
apparently not the tool for top-notch scans of color photos.
Most users raved, and everyone loved the software.

HTH,
James Arthur

Thanks, that's good news, I'll give Visioneer another chance.

 

[John Woodgate]

I read in sci.electronics.design that Winfield Hill

Another issue
was all the late-night and weekend work - one can hardly hire
enough staff to be waiting around for orders 24-7, right?

No, you have to marry them.

 

[[email protected]]

Win:

I had a B/W scanner that was about the size of a large paper punch,
interfaced on a parallel cable. It was fast. However, I have never seen
such a scanner with a button for "scan to email." For that, I think the
Canon scanners and other flatbeds do well.

I now have an HP psc (printer, scanner, copier) that doesn't take up
much room.

I wish I could remember the name of my older scanner.

Flatbeds and psc types usually have profiles. If you can get one with
a scan to email profile and set the settings for a pencil sketch,
you'll be set up pretty well. Also, consder a fax, maybe?

Another wholly different way is a graphics tablet or pen-based
computer. With the tablet, you can put a piece of paper over the
sensitive area, and use a felt-tipped electronic pen. With pen based
computers, you draw right on the screen. Mine has a feel much like pen
and paper and has a pressure sensitive pen option. With a pen-based
computer or pen-enabled monitor, when the email comes back, you don't
have to print it, annotate it, and scan it again. Plus you never run
out of paper.

Yours,

Doug Goncz
Replikon Research
Falls Church, VA 22044-2536

 

[Jim Thompson]

On 27 Aug 2005 05:06:38 -0700, Winfield Hill

[snip]

Try it right now, starting your watch after your sketch is
finished and stopping it after hitting SEND. Let us know.

It's all waiting around and fooling around I'd like to see
shortened. What's more, 15 seconds is a long time.

[snip]

Win, You're too hypertensive. Sit back, relax, sip a glass of wine,
watch the wildlife... calm down already ;-)

BTW, Was it you or the wife that is into fish tanks?

I'm presently starting up a 240 gallon reef tank. The live rock is
finally stabilized, after three weeks, so I'm about ready to add
snails and crabs.

...Jim Thompson

 

[[email protected]]

Five? What do you need the +5V supply for? Four will do.

Odd that you picked USB. I find I can't take 12 mpbs.

For my interface, I brazed sewing needles into a right angle female DB9
shell and made the connection to my spinal cord through the formen.

I blink my right eye to send DTR....it wouldn't be polite to say what I
need to do to send a carriage return. Not in a forum where children
might read the post, in any case. Let's just say that before a Usenet
session I eat a bowl of Campbell's Bean Soup.

Doug (who is writing this at 110 bps, an appropriate rate for text...)

 

[Ken Moffett]

[email protected] wrote in @g44g2000cwa.googlegroups.com:

Win:

I had a B/W scanner that was about the size of a large paper punch,
interfaced on a parallel cable. It was fast. However, I have never seen
such a scanner with a button for "scan to email." For that, I think the
Canon scanners and other flatbeds do well.

My HP Scanjet 5370C has an email button right on the front.

 

[Spehro Pefhany]

[email protected] wrote in @g44g2000cwa.googlegroups.com:


My HP Scanjet 5370C has an email button right on the front.

Actually, the Canon has an e-mail button too, I just never bothered to
set it up for my desired settings-- the CanoScan software picks a file
name for you and opens an explorer window so you can double click and
check it out (and crop/edit it if required and if you have full
Acrobat, of course). It can also be set up to default to jpg if you
like (not gif, unfortunately). It also opens your desired e-mail
program (if it's not open already) with blank to/subject lines and the
pdf file attached. It doesn't open Acrobat, that would be nice, but
that's only one double click away. One button press and a double
click- pretty slick.

I like to use b&w (not grayscale) like a fax machine, but 400dpi
(double high-res fax).

Takes about 20 seconds from button push to having the file sitting
there. It gives them default file names like Mail0002.PDF. A simple
test drawing on quadrille paper was only 24k. I really like this
software-- it used to be a nightmare. I'll put the test scan up in the
schematics ng.

 

[Jim Thompson]

Actually, the Canon has an e-mail button too, I just never bothered to
set it up for my desired settings-- the CanoScan software picks a file
name for you and opens an explorer window so you can double click and
check it out (and crop/edit it if required and if you have full
Acrobat, of course). It can also be set up to default to jpg if you
like (not gif, unfortunately). It also opens your desired e-mail
program (if it's not open already) with blank to/subject lines and the
pdf file attached. It doesn't open Acrobat, that would be nice, but
that's only one double click away. One button press and a double
click- pretty slick.

I like to use b&w (not grayscale) like a fax machine, but 400dpi
(double high-res fax).

Takes about 20 seconds from button push to having the file sitting
there. It gives them default file names like Mail0002.PDF. A simple
test drawing on quadrille paper was only 24k. I really like this
software-- it used to be a nightmare. I'll put the test scan up in the
schematics ng.

My hp3970 has that also, but I never use the buttons, I do everything
from the keyboard ;-)

...Jim Thompson

 

[Winfield Hill]

Jim Thompson wrote...

BTW, Was it you or the wife that is into fish tanks?
I'm presently starting up a 240 gallon reef tank. The live rock is
finally stabilized, after three weeks, so I'm about ready to add
snails and crabs.

My wife, fresh water only. 15 years of research, plus two home tanks.
http://www.rowland.org/organization/past_research/fishlab/fishlab.html

 

[Winfield Hill]

Spehro Pefhany wrote...

Actually, the Canon has an e-mail button too ... snip ...

I like to use b&w (not grayscale) like a fax machine, but 400dpi
(double high-res fax).

Takes about 20 seconds from button push to having the file sitting
there. It gives them default file names like Mail0002.PDF. A simple
test drawing on quadrille paper was only 24k. I really like this
software-- it used to be a nightmare. I'll put the test scan up
in the schematics ng.

Totaling about 30 seconds for the whole email thing, right?

 

[Winfield Hill]

Jim Thompson wrote...

My hp3970 has that also, but I never use the buttons,
I do everything from the keyboard ;-)

Did you do the actual portal-to-portal timing test yet?

 

[Spehro Pefhany]

Spehro Pefhany wrote...

Totaling about 30 seconds for the whole email thing, right?

Yes, depending on how fast you can type the recipient and subject
lines, and how quickly you can verify that the pdf is okay. I probably
wouldn't bother looking at it I did it more often- it doesn't happen
with a fax and nobody gets their knickers in a twist, they just
re-send it if it doesn't come out well. And at 400dpi b&w, it always
seems to come out fine (pen or pencil). Scanning to a jpg is much
slower, both because of the high-res color default settings I've got
and because Photoshop is a bit of a pig and takes 15 or 20 seconds by
itself just to open.

In scan->pdf it's more than fast enough for the few times I use it.
Thanks for raising the question-- otherwise I'd probably never have
set up the e-mail function properly.

BTW, this is a USB2.0 scanner.


Best regards,
Spehro Pefhany

 

[Jim Thompson]

Jim Thompson wrote...

Did you do the actual portal-to-portal timing test yet?

I'm not stressed enough yet to worry about it ;-)

(Exactly what would you like me to time? It's certainly going to
depend on the drawing complexity.)

...Jim Thompson

 

[René]

I've got a decent-quality Wacom digitizer tablet, but hate it for
schematics. Time-lag and limited resolution make for jaggy, pixelated
capture, and somehow the tablet doesn't ever quite see things the way I
think I'm drawing them. End results are hard-won, yet less than
impressive. Paper and pencil--easy, clean, & fast.

As for scanners Win, might this be your cup-of-tea?
http://orders.visioneer.com/item.jsp?item=90-0493-600&category=MOBILE

I love my older copies of Visioneer's 'PaperPort' document management
software (though fret that its virtues may not've survived their
subsequent aquisition by ScanSoft intact).

Regards,
James Arthur

I use a cheap 640 x 480 capable USB webcam with an "expose" button on
the top (some Logitech model).

Makes an instant photograph of your sketch. Done.

Incidentally, the webcam has amazing macro capabilities (manually
screwing the lens to close-focus) - great to photograph SMT-sized
issues like poor soldering etc. Great to show the production line to
step up QC

And if I really want to scare somebody, I can also show my face in a
VC contact. Works quite well these days.

 

[Winfield Hill]

Jim Thompson wrote...

(Exactly what would you like me to time? It's certainly
going to depend on the drawing complexity.)

A simple page. My scanner insists on taking the whole page,
some others do two passes, one to evaluate the size, plus a
second real scan. I don't think that actually saves any time.
So do whatever is fastest, but do include the email insertion
time. It's a simple experiment, useful to see how bad (or how
good) things really are.

 

[Winfield Hill]

René wrote...

I use a cheap 640 x 480 capable USB webcam with an "expose" button
on the top (some Logitech model).

Makes an instant photograph of your sketch. Done.

Incidentally, the webcam has amazing macro capabilities (manually
screwing the lens to close-focus) - great to photograph SMT-sized
issues like poor soldering etc. Great to show the production line
to step up QC

Which Logitech model?

 

[Michael Black]

I use a cheap 640 x 480 capable USB webcam with an "expose" button on
the top (some Logitech model).

Makes an instant photograph of your sketch. Done.

Incidentally, the webcam has amazing macro capabilities (manually
screwing the lens to close-focus) - great to photograph SMT-sized
issues like poor soldering etc. Great to show the production line to
step up QC

I got one at a garage sale back in May for a dollar, and was surprised
when I plugged it in that it worked with my Linux distribution right
away.

You're right, they are pretty good for closeups. I spent some time fiddling
with it. Mount it above a flat surface, and it's probably fine for this.

And unlike the scanner, it shows results almost immediately. So if you've
got it wrong, it can be fixed immediately.

Michael

 

[Jim Thompson]

Jim Thompson wrote...

A simple page. My scanner insists on taking the whole page,
some others do two passes, one to evaluate the size, plus a
second real scan. I don't think that actually saves any time.
So do whatever is fastest, but do include the email insertion
time. It's a simple experiment, useful to see how bad (or how
good) things really are.

1:05 from Scan to Send, and I stumbled a bit in the address book,
looking for your address, only discover you're not in MY address book,
so I picked someone else ;-)

Scanner, hp3970 flatbed; E-mail, venerable Eudora Pro v3.0.5 ;-)

...Jim Thompson