1sane-canon_pp(5) SANE Scanner Access Now Easy sane-canon_pp(5)
2
6 sane-canon_pp - SANE backend for Canon CanoScan Parallel Port flatbed
7 scanners
8
10 The sane-canon_pp library implements a SANE (Scanner Access Now Easy)
11 backend that provides access to the following Canon flatbed scanners:
12 CanoScan FB320P
14 CanoScan FB620P
15 CanoScan FB330P
16 CanoScan FB630P
17 CanoScan N340P
18 CanoScan N640P
19 CanoScan N640P ex
20 No USB scanners are supported and there are no plans to support them in
22 the future. Other projects are working on support for USB scanners.
23 See the PROJECTS file for more detail. The FB310P and FB610P are re-
24 badged Avision scanners which use a different command set, so are
25 unlikely to be supported by this backend in the future.
26 IMPORTANT: this is alpha code. While we have made every effort to make
28 it as reliable as possible, it will not always work as expected. Feed‐
29 back is still appreciated. Please send any bug reports to the main‐
30 tainers as listed on the web page (listed in SEE ALSO below).
31
34 This backend expects device names of the form presented by
35 libieee1284(3). These names are highly dependent on operating system
36 and version.
37 On Linux 2.4 kernels this will be of the form parport0 or older (2.2
39 and before) kernels may produce names like 0x378 (the base address of
40 your port) or simply 0 depending on your module configuration. Check
41 the contents of /proc/parport if it exists. If you don't want to spec‐
42 ify a default port (or don't know its name), the backend should be able
43 to detect which port your scanner is on.
44
47 The contents of the canon_pp.conf file is a list of options for the
48 driver to use. Empty lines and lines starting with a hash mark (#) are
49 ignored.
50 The supported options are currently ieee1284, calibrate, init_mode, and
52 force_nibble
53 Option ieee1284 port-name defines which port to use. The format of
55 port-name is OS dependent, based on the names presented by libieee1284.
56 Please only have one of these lines, or all but one will be ignored.
57 Option calibrate cal-file [port-name] defines which calibration file to
59 use on a per-port basis. If you only have one parport, the port-name
60 argument may be omitted - but be careful as this will cause problems on
61 multi-scanner systems. You may have as many of these lines as you
62 like, as long as each has a unique port name. The tilde (`~') charac‐
63 ter is acceptable and will be expanded to the value of the HOME envi‐
64 ronment.
65 Option init_mode <AUTO|FB620P|FB630P> [portname] defines which initial‐
67 isation (wake-up) mode to use on a per-port basis. If you only have
68 one parport, the portname argument may be omitted - but be careful as
69 this may cause problems on multi-scanner systems. You may have as many
70 of these lines as you like, as long as each has a unique port name.
71 The valid initialisation modes are FB620P (which strobes 10101010 and
72 01010101 on the data pins), FB630P (which strobes 11001100 and 00110011
73 on the data pins) and AUTO, which will try FB630P mode first then
74 FB620P mode second. The FB620P mode is also used by the FB320P. The
75 FB630P mode is used by the FB330P, N340P, and N640P.
76 Option force_nibble forces the driver to use nibble mode even if ECP
78 mode is reported to work by libieee1284. This works-around the rare
79 issue of ECP mode being reported to work by the library, then not work‐
80 ing.
81
84 Hit the "Calibrate" button before scanning. It vastly improves the
85 quality of scans.
86 To enable automatic detection of your scanner, uncomment the "canon_pp"
88 line from /etc/sane.d/dll.conf
89
91 /etc/sane.d/canon_pp.conf
92 The backend configuration file (see also description of
93 SANE_CONFIG_DIR below).
94 /usr/lib64/sane/libsane-canon_pp.a
96 The static library implementing this backend.
97 /usr/lib64/sane/libsane-canon_pp.so
99 The shared library implementing this backend (present on systems
100 that support dynamic loading).
101
103 SANE_CONFIG_DIR
104 This environment variable specifies the list of directories that
105 may contain the configuration file. Under UNIX, the directories
106 are separated by a colon (`:'), under OS/2, they are separated
107 by a semi-colon (`;'). If this variable is not set, the config‐
108 uration file is searched in two default directories: first, the
109 current working directory (".") and then in /etc/sane.d. If the
110 value of the environment variable ends with the directory sepa‐
111 rator character, then the default directories are searched after
112 the explicitly specified directories. For example, setting
113 SANE_CONFIG_DIR to "/tmp/config:" would result in directories
114 tmp/config, ., and /etc/sane.d being searched (in this order).
115 SANE_DEBUG_CANON_PP
117 If the library was compiled with debug support enabled, this
118 environment variable controls the debug level for this backend.
119 Higher debug levels increase the verbosity of the output.
120 Example: export SANE_DEBUG_CANON_PP=4
122
124 Features available in the Windows interface
125 Brightness and Contrast
127 These are not implemented, and probably never will be. These
128 appear to be implemented entirely in software. Use GIMP or a
129 similar program if you need these features.
130 Descreen Mode
132 This appears on our first analysis to be just oversampling with
133 an anti-aliasing filter. Again, it seems to be implemented
134 entirely in software, so GIMP is your best bet for now.
135 Gamma Tables
137 This is under investigation, but for now only a simple gamma
138 profile (ie: the one returned during calibration) will be
139 loaded.
140 Communication Problems
142 ECP mode in libieee1284 doesn't always work properly, even with new
144 hardware. We believe that this is a ppdev problem. If you change the
145 configuration file to include force_nibble , the problem will go away,
146 but you will only be able to scan in nibble mode.
147 Sometimes the scanner can be left in a state where our code cannot
149 revive it. If the backend reports no scanner present, try unplugging
150 the power and plugging it back in. Also try unplugging printers from
151 the pass-through port.
152 The scanner will not respond correctly to our commands when you first
154 plug in the power. You may find if you try a scan very soon after
155 plugging in the power that the backend will incorrectly report that you
156 have no scanner present. To avoid this, give it about 10 seconds to
157 reset itself before attempting any scans.
158 Repeated Lines
160 Sometimes at high resolutions (ie. 600dpi) you will notice lines which
162 appear twice. These lines correspond to points where the scanner head
163 has stopped during the scan (it stops every time the internal 64kb buf‐
164 fer is full). Basically it's a mechanical problem inside the scanner,
165 that the tolerance of movement for a start/stop event is greater than
166 1/600 inches. I've never tried the windows driver so I'm not sure how
167 (or if) it works around this problem, but as we don't know how to
168 rewind the scanner head to do these bits again, there's currently no
169 nice way to deal with the problem.
170 Grey-scale Scans
172 Be aware that the scanner uses the green LEDs to read grey-scale scans,
174 meaning green coloured things will appear lighter than normal, and red
175 and blue coloured items will appear darker than normal. For high-accu‐
176 racy grey-scale scans of colour items, it's best just to scan in colour
177 and convert to grey-scale in graphics software such as the GIMP.
178 FB620P/FB320P Caveats
180 These models can not be reset in the same way as the others. The win‐
182 dows driver doesn't know how to reset them either - when left with an
183 inconsistent scanner, it will start scanning half way down the page!
184 Aborting is known to work correctly on the FB*30P models, and is known
186 to be broken on the FB*20P models. The FB620P which I tested on simply
187 returns garbage after a scan has been aborted using the method we know.
188 Aborting is able to leave the scanner in a state where it can be shut
189 down, but not where another scan can be made.
190
194 sane(7), sane-dll(5), libieee1284(3),
195 http://canon-fb330p.sourceforge.net/
196
199 This backend is primarily the work of Simon Krix (Reverse Engineering),
200 and Matthew Duggan (SANE interface).
201 Many thanks to Kevin Easton for his comments and help, and Kent A. Sig‐
203 norini for his help with the N340P.
204 11 Jul 2008 sane-canon_pp(5)