sane-coolscan - SANE backend for Nikon film-scanners

This file is a short descripton of the coolscan-backend for sane!

The sane-coolscan library implements a SANE backend that provides the interface to the following Nikon Coolscan Film scanners: Nikon LS20, LS30, LS1000, LS2000.

Even though the backend has worked for a number of people, there are still some problems, especially in combination with some SCSI card/drivers (AHA-1505/aha152x.o) and the autofocus command. You should consider this backend 'alpha' and be carefull when using it the first time.

The configuration file for this backend resides in /etc/sane.d/coolscan.conf.

Its contents is a list of device names that correspond to Nikon Coolscan scanners. Empty lines and lines starting with a hash mark (#) are ignored. A sample configuration file is shown below:

 #scsi Vendor Model Type 
 scsi Nikon * Scanner 
 /dev/scanner 

The special device name must be a generic SCSI device or a symlink to such a device. To find out to which device your scanner is assigned and how you have to set the permissions of that device, have a look at sane-scsi.

Some SCSI-adapters and low-level SCSI drivers do not work correctly with this backend and the Coolscan scanners. These systems hang when the autofocus command is send to the Scanner. To see a list of which card/driver combinations work or dont work have a look at: http://andreas.rick.free.fr/sane/autofocus.html.

The backend configuration file:

/etc/sane.d/coolscan.conf

The static library implementing this backend:

/usr/lib/sane/libsane-coolscan.a

The shared library implementing this backend:

/usr/lib/sane/libsane-coolscan.so (present on systems that support dynamic loading)

SANE_DEBUG_COOLSCAN

If the library was compiled with debug support enabled, this environment variable controls the debug level for this backend. E.g., a value of 128 requests all debug output to be printed. Smaller levels reduce verbosity: SANE_DEBUG_COOLSCAN values

Examples:

on bash:

export SANE_DEBUG_COOLSCAN=8

on csh:

setenv SANE_DEBUG_COOLSCAN 8

The autofocus command does not work with some SCSI card/driver combinations

The gamma table is not implemented for the LS1000 yet.

The dust-removal is not working yet

http://andreas.rick.free.fr/sane/

The homepage of this backend

http://www.sema.be/coolscan/

The original version of the coolscan backend by Didier

sane(7), sane-scsi(5)

Didier Carlier - For writing the original Coolscan backend (without it I would not have started this)

Oliver Rauch - For adapting xsane so quickly to the infrared stuff.

All the other people working on SANE.

Andreas Rick

andreas.rick@free.fr