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
33 This backend expects device names of the form presented by libieee1284.
34 These names are highly dependent on operating system and version.
35 On Linux 2.4 kernels this will be of the form parport0 or older (2.2
37 and before) kernels may produce names like 0x378 (the base address of
38 your port) or simply 0 depending on your module configuration. Check
39 the contents of /proc/parport if it exists. If you don't want to spec‐
40 ify a default port (or don't know its name), the backend should be able
41 to detect which port your scanner is on.
42
45 The contents of the canon_pp.conf file is a list of options for the
46 driver to use. Empty lines and lines starting with a hash mark (#) are
47 ignored.
48 The supported options are currently ieee1284, calibrate, init_mode, and
50 force_nibble
51 Option ieee1284 port-name defines which port to use. The format of
53 port-name is OS dependent, based on the names presented by libieee1284.
54 Please only have one of these lines, or all but one will be ignored.
55 Option calibrate cal-file [port-name] defines which calibration file to
57 use on a per-port basis. If you only have one parport, the port-name
58 argument may be omitted - but be careful as this will cause problems on
59 multi-scanner systems. You may have as many of these lines as you
60 like, as long as each has a unique port name. The tilde (`~') charac‐
61 ter is acceptable and will be expanded to the value of the HOME envi‐
62 ronment.
63 Option init_mode <AUTO|FB620P|FB630P> [portname] defines which initial‐
65 isation (wake-up) mode to use on a per-port basis. If you only have
66 one parport, the portname argument may be omitted - but be careful as
67 this may cause problems on multi-scanner systems. You may have as many
68 of these lines as you like, as long as each has a unique port name.
69 The valid initialisation modes are FB620P (which strobes 10101010 and
70 01010101 on the data pins), FB630P (which strobes 11001100 and 00110011
71 on the data pins) and AUTO, which will try FB630P mode first then
72 FB620P mode second. The FB620P mode is also used by the FB320P. The
73 FB630P mode is used by the FB330P, N340P, and N640P.
74 Option force_nibble forces the driver to use nibble mode even if ECP
76 mode is reported to work by libieee1284. This works-around the rare
77 issue of ECP mode being reported to work by the library, then not work‐
78 ing.
79
82 Hit the "Calibrate" button before scanning. It vastly improves the
83 quality of scans.
84 To enable automatic detection of your scanner, uncomment the "canon_pp"
86 line from /etc/sane.d/dll.conf
87
89 /etc/sane.d/canon_pp.conf
90 The backend configuration file (see also description of
91 SANE_CONFIG_DIR below).
92 /usr/lib64/sane/libsane-canon_pp.a
94 The static library implementing this backend.
95 /usr/lib64/sane/libsane-canon_pp.so
97 The shared library implementing this backend (present on systems
98 that support dynamic loading).
99
101 SANE_CONFIG_DIR
102 This environment variable specifies the list of directories that
103 may contain the configuration file. Under UNIX, the directories
104 are separated by a colon (`:'), under OS/2, they are separated
105 by a semi-colon (`;'). If this variable is not set, the config‐
106 uration file is searched in two default directories: first, the
107 current working directory (".") and then in /etc/sane.d. If the
108 value of the environment variable ends with the directory sepa‐
109 rator character, then the default directories are searched after
110 the explicitly specified directories. For example, setting
111 SANE_CONFIG_DIR to "/tmp/config:" would result in directories
112 "tmp/config", ".", and "/etc/sane.d" being searched (in this
113 order).
114 SANE_DEBUG_CANON_PP
116 If the library was compiled with debug support enabled, this
117 environment variable controls the debug level for this backend.
118 Higher debug levels increase the verbosity of the output.
119 Example: export SANE_DEBUG_CANON_PP=4
121
123 Features available in the Windows interface
124 Brightness and Contrast
126 These are not implemented, and probably never will be. These
127 appear to be implemented entirely in software. Use GIMP or a
128 similar program if you need these features.
129 Descreen Mode
131 This appears on our first analysis to be just oversampling with
132 an anti-aliasing filter. Again, it seems to be implemented
133 entirely in software, so GIMP is your best bet for now.
134 Gamma Tables
136 This is under investigation, but for now only a simple gamma
137 profile (ie: the one returned during calibration) will be
138 loaded.
139 Communication Problems
141 ECP mode in libieee1284 doesn't always work properly, even with new
143 hardware. We believe that this is a ppdev problem. If you change the
144 configuration file to include force_nibble , the problem will go away,
145 but you will only be able to scan in nibble mode.
146 Sometimes the scanner can be left in a state where our code cannot
148 revive it. If the backend reports no scanner present, try unplugging
149 the power and plugging it back in. Also try unplugging printers from
150 the pass-through port.
151 The scanner will not respond correctly to our commands when you first
153 plug in the power. You may find if you try a scan very soon after
154 plugging in the power that the backend will incorrectly report that you
155 have no scanner present. To avoid this, give it about 10 seconds to
156 reset itself before attempting any scans.
157 Repeated Lines
159 Sometimes at high resolutions (ie. 600dpi) you will notice lines which
161 appear twice. These lines correspond to points where the scanner head
162 has stopped during the scan (it stops every time the internal 64kb buf‐
163 fer is full). Basically it's a mechanical problem inside the scanner,
164 that the tolerance of movement for a start/stop event is greater than
165 1/600 inches. I've never tried the windows driver so I'm not sure how
166 (or if) it works around this problem, but as we don't know how to
167 rewind the scanner head to do these bits again, there's currently no
168 nice way to deal with the problem.
169 Grey-scale Scans
171 Be aware that the scanner uses the green LEDs to read grey-scale scans,
173 meaning green coloured things will appear lighter than normal, and red
174 and blue coloured items will appear darker than normal. For high-accu‐
175 racy grey-scale scans of colour items, it's best just to scan in colour
176 and convert to grey-scale in graphics software such as the GIMP.
177 FB620P/FB320P Caveats
179 These models can not be reset in the same way as the others. The win‐
181 dows driver doesn't know how to reset them either - when left with an
182 inconsistent scanner, it will start scanning half way down the page!
183 Aborting is known to work correctly on the FB*30P models, and is known
185 to be broken on the FB*20P models. The FB620P which I tested on simply
186 returns garbage after a scan has been aborted using the method we know.
187 Aborting is able to leave the scanner in a state where it can be shut
188 down, but not where another scan can be made.
189
193 sane(7), sane-dll(5) http://canon-fb330p.sourceforge.net/
194
197 This backend is primarily the work of Simon Krix (Reverse Engineering),
198 and Matthew Duggan (SANE interface).
199 Many thanks to Kevin Easton for his comments and help, and Kent A. Sig‐
201 norini for his help with the N340P.
202 11 Jul 2008 sane-canon_pp(5)