sane-project-website/old-archive/1999-08/0161.html

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<!-- name="Andreas Beck" -->
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<title>sane-devel: Re: SANE V2</title>
<h1>Re: SANE V2</h1>
<b>Andreas Beck</b> (<a href="mailto:becka@rz.uni-duesseldorf.de"><i>becka@rz.uni-duesseldorf.de</i></a>)<br>
<i>Sun, 15 Aug 1999 13:53:54 +0200</i>
<p>
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<i>&gt; &gt; So the question is: Do you like the following general ideas:</i><br>
<i>&gt; No. That was the worst proposal for SANE 2.0 that I can imagine.</i><br>
<p>
/mode annoyed on<br>
<p>
Pardon ? Why ?<br>
<p>
<i>&gt; Here is my counter-proposal, I think it's simpler and remains in the</i><br>
<i>&gt; spirit of SANE 1.0 </i><br>
<p>
Sorry, if I sound a little pissed, but it might help to read up a little on<br>
the history of SANE. You might wish to look at V 0.1 and the names in that<br>
spec before judging "the spirit" of it.<br>
<p>
<i>&gt; 1. Add several new SANE_FRAME_ (...) formats</i><br>
<p>
Now _this_ IMHO is bad. What do you tell the user, if you encounter an<br>
unknown format ?<br>
<p>
Ahem - Mr. user - I got an unknown frame type #345. Should I save it ?<br>
<p>
The reason for giving the mime type is, that you _can_ get a clue what the<br>
unknown format is about using mime.types and/or the brains of the user.<br>
<p>
I'd hate to first save a type #345 file, then ask the "file" magic database<br>
about what it could be, just to find out that it's something very obscure<br>
for which I have no convertors.<br>
<p>
I'd rather be told it's "image/obscure-stuff-for-PDP-11" right away.<br>
<p>
<i>&gt; Each frame format would be for a standards-based image compression format</i><br>
<i>&gt; in common use on scanners. </i><br>
<p>
Happy time hacking all of them in. Digital cameras are very creative in that<br>
area. <br>
<p>
<i>&gt; It should be possible to save the data stream exactly as transmitted into </i><br>
<i>&gt; a file, and load that file into any suitable image viewer or editor.</i><br>
<p>
How do you decide "suitable", if you just have an "unknown frametype" ?<br>
<p>
<i>&gt; So far we've seen JFIF and the G3 series discussed on this list, unless</i><br>
<i>&gt; anyone steps forward I would guess that's all there is for now.</i><br>
<p>
Flashpix, Photo-CD, and about any other file-format for the case of picture<br>
archives, which can as well be implemented as a SANE backend.<br>
With more intelligence being moved into the scanners, we might get<br>
text/plain or text/rtf in the future. TWAIN has provisions to read barcodes,<br>
so their translation is probably also directly provided by some scanners.<br>
<p>
<i>&gt; 2. Define appropriate behaviour for new frames</i><br>
<p>
<i>&gt; The existing frame types have obvious meanings for bps, lines etc.</i><br>
<i>&gt; but these may not be useful in the same way for compressed data. After</i><br>
<i>&gt; looking at the existing software, and the new compressed formats, we</i><br>
<i>&gt; need to define some appropriate behaviour in the SANE standard</i><br>
<p>
I would simply consider them undefined and filled with values that will<br>
allow for smooth transfer even with old code. They are of no interest to<br>
you for the transmission. And any external format like JPG will have the<br>
information we transfer outband for application/sane inband, that is,<br>
included in the file stream itself.<br>
<p>
<i>&gt; 3. Add extra well-known options</i><br>
<p>
<i>&gt; compression "Controls image compression (e.g. JPEG, G3, NONE)"</i><br>
<i>&gt; Backends should offer this option if they support standards-based</i><br>
<i>&gt; compression.</i><br>
<p>
<i>&gt; filename "Recommended file name (e.g. buttercup.jpg)"</i><br>
<i>&gt; Backends with appropriate information can recommend a filename for</i><br>
<i>&gt; storing this image on disk.</i><br>
<p>
Pardon me ? This is precisely what I was proposing ... ???<br>
Could you consider reading what others propose before judging ?<br>
<p>
/mode annoyed off<br>
<p>
CU, ANdy<br>
<p>
<pre>
-- 
= Andreas Beck                    |  Email :  &lt;<a href="mailto:andreas.beck@ggi-project.org">andreas.beck@ggi-project.org</a>&gt; =
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<li> <b>Next message:</b> <a href="0162.html">Stephen Williams: "Re: Starting a discussion about SANE and TWAIN..."</a>
<li> <b>Previous message:</b> <a href="0160.html">Bernhard Scheffold: "RE: Coolscan-III (vertical vs horizontal position of scanner)?"</a>
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