No. 648: Creating an electronic book at high speed without ripping the original book apart (November 16, 2012)

Technology:

Dainippon Printing and the University of Tokyo jointly developed equipment to create an electronic book automatically while flipping pages of the original book at high speed. In addition to eliminating the necessity to rip a book apart, the equipment can read 250 pages per minute automatically even if a page contains photos and illustrations besides letters. Dainippon Printing will sell this equipment to electronic book publishers starting in 2013.

The equipment utilizes the high-speed image recognition technology developed by Masatoshi Ishikawa of the University of Tokyo. A high-speed camera shoots a book 500 times a second from the above while a special machine is flipping pages, and infrared laser recognizes the distortion of a page created when a page is flipped. A high-definition camera shoots a well-organized page, and the image is corrected to eliminate distortion. The resultant digitalized images are good enough to bind them as an electronic book. The equipment can process a page that contains even handwritten characters and cartoons. Because it can also process a fat book, it is useful to digitalize bound corporate and academic materials.

 

Corporate introduction of Dainippon Printing