Dear Madam or Sir:

I do consulting title work for oil and gas companies. One of my responsibilities involves researching the public records in various counties. In the past, I used to write down information regarding specific documents that pertained to the title to the surface or mineral estates I was researching. I later had to transcribe my hand-written notes to typed text for various reports.

I now carry a laptop computer into the courthouses that allow electrical devices. I was intrigued several years ago when the hand-held copier came to market. It would work for information stored in books, but it did not work on viewing screens requied to examine current data stored on either microfilm or microfiche.

I have pondered the question of how to efficiently get data from the public records. The typed text I currently utilize works well for preparing reports. However, certain time and accuracy problems are incurred with my current method. It takes a considerable amount of time to type the type of instrument, the instrument date, the recording date, the book and page number where the instrument was recorded, the grantor (assignor, etc.), the grantee (assignee, etc.), the legal description of the lands covered by the instrument and any peculiar clauses in the document which need to be addressed in my reports.

I have decided that a digital camera with a capacity of 200-300 pages of information would suit my purposes. The camera could either be a 35MM or a video camera with single frame capabilities. The camera would need to be capable of taking a legible print from various distances and from either books or the microfilm/microfiche viewers available for public viewing of the various documents.

What would you recommend? If you don't have a solution, would you be willing to refer me to another company?

Please respond to my email address:

everonnrg@aol.com

Thank you,

Larry P. Grubb, C. P. L. President, Everon Energy, Inc. P. O. Box 485 Fremont, MI 49412-0485 231-924-6622

-- Larry Paul Grubb (everonnrg@aol.com), November 06, 1999

Answers

To capture sufficient detail from a written document, you need a resolution of about 10 pixels per linear millimetre (mm) at the subject. Depending on the document, you might get away with less. If the document is A4 size (210x297mm), this is about 6 million pixels. You are really pushing it with a digital camera.

The other issue is the number of pages. 300 pages, at 6MB per page, would be 1.8GB (but compression might reduce this to 180MB). You would need a laptop to periodically download the images from the camera (or a pile of memory cards).

One obvious solution would be a scanner with your laptop computer. Even a cheap flatbed scanner will handle this. You might then be able to use OCR (Optical Recognition Software) to convert the image to text, but be aware that OCR software isn't perfect (you MUST carefully check the results).

A 35mm camera with macro lens would also work. However, you would also need a copy stand (at a pinch, a tripod would do) and lighting equipment. After processing the film, it could be scanned and OCR'd.

-- Alan Gibson (Alan.Gibson@technologist.com), November 06, 1999.

I noticed several queries wanting to use digital cameras as copy machines, etc. So I thought I would snap a few documents and screen so one could see what can be done. None of this activity was done with a lot of preparation. No special equipements was used. It pretty much was quick and dirty. But take a look and judge for your self. The pictures are on my web site under 'Digtial Text' subject.

My url is pages.prodigy.net/daveclark

-- dave clark (daveclark@mail.com), November 08, 1999.

Larry -

I've been doing similar work for the past month using a Toshiba PDR-M4. Works pretty well. My experience is that for typewritten documents you need around 110 pixels per linear inch, to get a readable but not-so-nice image. 150 pixels/inch gives a nice image. Surprisingly, handwriting takes FEWER pixels/inch - maybe 80 for typical handwriting.

I just noticed you're actually in Michigan. We're going to be bothering officials in the very same courthouses! (I'm annoying County Clerks; I suppose you're down the hall at the Register of Deeds.)

The PDR-M4 holds about 150 pages (monochrome image, 2d best resolution level) in a 32meg card - the largest that can be used without upgrading to the newest release of the EEPROM, which I haven't done. But if you bring along a laptop with a USB (W98 only, doesn't work with W95, even W95 with USB support) it takes seconds to download the shots and erase them from the camera. Like 60 seconds for 150 frames. And you're good to go again.

The real lesson I've learned is that you need to think about lighting and mounting the camera. I've experimented and finally ended up with a copy stand (Testrite, about $70) and some auxilliary lighting. (The PDR-M4 is crummy with flash - just doesn't calibrate correctly.)

Haven't tried acquiring images from computer screens, but it's probably just a few more lessons to learn. Hard to believe it would be very hard, as long as your exposure time was long enough to catch several refreshes of the screen. So you'll need a very stable base such as a tripod or copy stand again.

Anyway, if you're still interested in all this, feel free to give me a call - 517-351-6682. Or if you find yourself around East Lansing, drop in and I'll show you my setup.

-mark grebner (Mark@Grebner.com)

p.s. Come to think of it, you and I might actually want to work together at some point - I really am sending people to courthouses throughout Michigan and Wisconsin. I'd be happy to have them work for you, or have your people pick up stuff for me. Save an awful lot of driving!

-- Mark Grebner (Mark@Grebner.com), December 21, 1999.