Twain problems

Collapse
This topic is closed.
X
X
 
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts
  • Mikael Olofsson

    #1

    Twain problems

    Hi all!

    Sorry for this rather lengthy post. It's a long preamble followed by a few
    questions based on that.

    Here's my situation: I am trying to write a specialized scanner utility for
    my own needs, and I want to use the module twain to control my scanner. I
    haven't used the twain module before, which is most certainly why I'm facing
    problems. My problem is to interprete some of the information I get from the
    scanner. The scanner, by the way, is an HP LaserJet 3020, which is a
    multi-toy (printer/scanner/copyer), and I use Python 2.3 on Windows XP.

    I set up communication with the scanner as follows (modulo a few ifs to take
    care of unsuccessful connections). Here self is an instance of a class with
    Tkinter.Tk as its base class.

    self.SM = twain.SourceMan ager(self.winfo _id(),ProductNa me='foo')
    self.SD = self.SM.OpenSou rce()

    The TWAIN dialog pops up nicely, and I get two options: "hp LaserJet 3020
    TWAIN 1.0 (32-32)" and "WIA-hp LaserJet 3020 1.0 (32-32)". The first choice
    is HPs interface to the scanner, while the second seems to be a scanner
    interface that comes with Windows.

    One issue arises if I choose "WIA-hp LaserJet 3020 1.0 (32-32)" and then do
    the following:

    capVal=self.SD. GetCapability(t wain.ICAP_CONTR AST)

    After that capVal is

    {'StepSize': 1,
    'DefaultValue': 0,
    'CurrentValue': 0,
    'MaxValue': 1000,
    'MinValue': 64536}

    My educated guess is that 64536 should be interpreted as -1000, since 64536
    is -1000 modulo 2**16. One problem is that the twain type is not specified.
    So, perhaps I can find the twain type in some other way. The check

    capDef=self.SD. GetCapabilityDe fault(twain.ICA P_CONTRAST)

    gives me capDef==( 7, 0.0 ). According to my introspection of the twain
    module, the type 7 is twain.TWTY_FIX3 2. Googling around gives me the
    impression that this corresponds to 32 bits of which the first 16 bits
    correspond to the integer part, and the last 16 bits correspond to the
    fraction part. I thought that the twain module would take care of sign
    issues for me, but it does not seem to do so. OK, I can probably live with
    that. In any case, I guess I'll have to.

    OK, that's perhaps not so tough.

    Another issue arises if I choose "hp LaserJet 3020 TWAIN 1.0 (32-32)" and
    then do the following:

    capVal=self.SD. GetCapability(t wain.ICAP_XSCAL ING)

    After that capVal is

    {'StepSize': 429457408,
    'DefaultValue': 1,
    'CurrentValue': 1,
    'MaxValue': 6,
    'MinValue': 429457408}

    Now I'm in trouble. The problem is to interprete capVal['StepSize'] and
    capVal['MinValue']. Both should correspond to some small positive value.
    Here the check

    capDef=self.SD. GetCapabilityDe fault(twain.ICA P_XSCALING)

    gives me capDef==( 4, 100 ). More introspection says that type 4 is
    twain.TWTY_UINT 16. So, again googling around, and I find that this
    corresponds to an unsigned 16bit integer, but that doesn't help me much
    since 429457408 > 2**16. I also notice that capDef[1]==100, while
    capVal['DefaultValue']==1, so there must be a scaling factor of 100
    (percents, yes I know). But that doesn't change the fact that I'm completely
    lost here.

    Finally, here are my questions:
    Can anyone enlighten me? From the above, I get the impression that the
    dictionary returned by self.SD.GetCapa bility in these cases give me integer
    approximations of the current and default values. Is that a correct
    interpretation? How should I deal with 429457408 in the example above? Are
    there other twain-type related issues that I haven't seen yet, that I should
    be aware of? Is there some web-resource out there that answers my questions?
    Am I simply missing some information that I might already have? At least I
    haven't been able to find any enlightment in the documentation of the twain
    module or in the TWAIN specification. It seems to me that I need to be very
    careful with the type of the capabilities. How careful should I be?

    Googling for things like TWTY_UINT16 typically results in what I interprete
    as C or C++ code, which does not help me much. I'm less fluent in C or C++
    than I am in Italian (I can order a beer and buy postcards or stamps, that's
    more or less it).

    I-cannot-order-a-beer-in-C-but-I-can-in-Python-ly yours
    /Mikael Olofsson
    Universitetslek tor (Senior Lecturer [BrE], Associate Professor [AmE])
    Linköpings universitet

    -----------------------------------------------------------------------
    E-Mail: mikael@isy.liu. se
    WWW: http://www.dtr.isy.liu.se/en/staff/mikael
    Phone: +46 - (0)13 - 28 1343
    Telefax: +46 - (0)13 - 28 1339
    -----------------------------------------------------------------------
    Linköpings kammarkör: www.kammarkoren.com Vi söker tenorer och basar!

Working...