Scanner uploads to web form

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Rentman
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Scanner uploads to web form

Post by Rentman »

Okay, I have been working on a project for a while that basically collects attendance info from couples. I built this "checkin program" on a portable server (Xampp) and use a portable browser with it. I walk up to the computer plug in my flash drive and name tag printer and I am ready to go. It checks the couples into the seminar and prints a name tag for them.
Here is my wishful design for the future. I want to be able to scan the couples ID's and have them upload into the form that I use to upload their info to the Mysql data base located on the flash drive. I want it to basically use any scanner that is currently hooked to the host computer that I take over for the seminar. This would be great for future checkin of the couple, as they could be id from there pic when they come to checkin.
Currently I am just having a brain fog as to where to start. I am very highly skilled with php, and java. I am just looking for some theory on the subject. Just some brain storming to help motivate me to try and get it done.
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John Cartwright
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Re: Scanner uploads to web form

Post by John Cartwright »

Well I don't think you'll be able to interface with PHP directly without writing a PHP module, similar to http://ca.php.net/manual/en/book.printer.php.

If you know where the scanner is going to upload the file, you could simply tell PHP to grab the latest uploaded file (since you don't have concurrent users scanning), check to see if that file exists in your db in the directory, and process accordingly.

I would suggest speaking with the scanner manufacturer to see if they have development toolkits to interface the with the hardware, although I don't think this applies since you said you are using multiple scanners.
Rentman
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Re: Scanner uploads to web form

Post by Rentman »

Yes the php part of the operation, grabing a local file and adding it to a web from, is the easy part. The problem is every computer I use will probably have a different type of copier/scanner hooked to it. Can yet figure a way to get broad enough with the php to accomodate this. Thanks for your reply and the link it is very helpful.
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Christopher
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Re: Scanner uploads to web form

Post by Christopher »

If you mean "scan their IDs" like their driver license, then you would need to write an app (Java for portablity?) that would do take the scan of the ID and run an OCR on the image to generate the text. The app could then fill in a form that was submitted to your PHP app.

Many IDs have a magnetic strip and you can buy readers that will read the data from those -- which would not have the errors that the OCR would induce.
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Rentman
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Re: Scanner uploads to web form

Post by Rentman »

The magnetic strip is what I currently use to get info, but this does not provide a pic of the Id (driver license). I have looked into the ocr programs, but I do not really care about extracting the text from the ID's. I just want to have java grab the image from the scanner and send it to a php form on my portable server. My problem is I will never know the model of the scanner that is hooked to the system I am on. How do I get around this.

Got to admit, I would love to play with the OCR and see if I could extract the text from the images.
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