JSONScan

A command line scanning client for Mac OS X 10.10 and higher.

The purpose of JSONScan is to make it easy for languages, other than objective-c or swift, to control a scanner on a mac, without a cocoa bridge or native bindings. It allows you to communicate with a scanner using JSON through stdin/stdout. It is used in production for the Mac version of FormReturn OMR Software, which was written in Java.

Compiled Executable

Available here: https://github.com/rquast/jsonscan/blob/master/jsonscan.zip?raw=true

Acknowledgements

JSONScan is a rewrite of scanline.

OrderedDictionary is used for the JSON output, to get around the abscence of ordered key-value list classes in Cocoa/ObjC.

Contributing

Contributions are welcome. Please only submit contribution by forking the project and creating a pull request.

Usage

JSONScan can be used from the command line or an application. It is ideal for use with classes such as Java's ProcessBuilder and Gson.

Scanning using default settings without JSON

./jsonscan -s

Querying Scanners & Settings

./jsonscan -l

Example output:

{"response": "found", "name": "Primera Trio"}
{"response": "status", "message": "All devices have been listed."}
{"response": "status", "message": "Scanner Ready: Primera Trio"}
{
  "response" : "settings",
  "name" : "Primera Trio",
  "read-only-settings" : {
    "can-use-black-white-threshold" : "true",
    "default-black-and-white-threshold" : "127",
    "can-perform-overview-scan" : "false",
    "native-x-resolution" : "300",
    "native-y-resolution" : "300",
    "supported-pixel-data-types" : {
      "0" : "Black and White",
      "1" : "Grayscale",
      "2" : "RGB",
      "3" : "Indexed",
      "4" : "CMY",
      "5" : "CMYK",
      "6" : "YUV",
      "7" : "YUVK",
      "8" : "CIEXYZ"
    },
    "supported-bit-depths" : {
      "1" : "1 Bit",
      "8" : "8 Bits"
    },
    "preferred-resolutions" : {
      "75" : "75 DPI",
      "100" : "100 DPI",
      "150" : "150 DPI",
      "200" : "200 DPI",
      "300" : "300 DPI",
      "600" : "600 DPI"
    },
    "preferred-scale-factors" : {
      "50" : "50%",
      "70" : "70%",
      "78" : "78%",
      "83" : "83%",
      "85" : "85%",
      "91" : "91%",
      "94" : "94%",
      "97" : "97%",
      "100" : "100%"
    },
    "supported-measurement-units" : {
      "0" : "Inches",
      "1" : "Centimeters",
      "5" : "Pixels"
    },
    "is-document-loaded" : "false",
    "document-size" : {
      "width" : "21",
      "height" : "29.7"
    },
    "physical-size" : {
      "width" : "21.59",
      "height" : "35.56"
    },
    "is-reverse-feeder-page-order" : "false",
    "supports-duplex-scanning" : "false",
    "supported-document-types" : {
      "1" : "A4",
      "3" : "US Letter",
      "4" : "US Legal",
      "13" : "A6",
      "62" : "4R"
    }
  },
  "read-write-settings" : {
    "use-back-white-threshold" : "false",
    "threshold-for-black-and-white-scanning" : "127",
    "bit-depth" : {
      "8" : "8 Bits"
    },
    "measurement-unit" : {
      "1" : "Centimeters"
    },
    "overview-resolution" : "300",
    "pixel-data-type" : {
      "2" : "RGB"
    },
    "scale-factor" : "100",
    "scan-area" : {
      "x" : "0",
      "y" : "0",
      "width" : "0",
      "height" : "0"
    },
    "scan-area-orientation" : {
      "1" : "Normal"
    },
    "is-duplex-scanning-enabled" : "false",
    "resolution" : "300",
    "document-type" : {
      "1" : "A4"
    },
    "even-page-orientation" : {
      "1" : "Normal"
    },
    "odd-page-orientation" : {
      "1" : "Normal"
    }
  }
}

Performing a scan with custom settings

./jsonscan -c < settings.json

settings.json example:

{
    "device-name": "Primera Trio",
    "base-directory": "/tmp",
    "output-file-type": "png",
    "resolution": "300",
    "is-duplex-scanning-enabled": "false",
    "use-back-white-threshold": "false",
    "threshold-for-black-and-white-scanning": "128",
    "document-type": "A4",
    "pixel-data-type": "0"
}

Roadmap

• Add support for page-load scan events (wait for the scanner to have a page loaded then perform scan).
• Add support for scan progress indication.

License

MIT for all files except OrderedDictionary which is Zlib licensed.