xscanimage(1)

xscanimage -- scans an image

Synopsis

xscanimage [--display d] [--no-xshm] [--[no-]show-events] [--sync] [--debug-level n] [devicename]

Description

xscanimage provides a graphical user interface to control an image acquisition device such as a flatbed scanner or a camera. It allows previewing and scanning individual images and can be invoked either directly from the command-line or through the GIMP image manipulation program. In the former case, xscanimage acts as a stand-alone program that saves acquired images in a suitable PNM format (PBM for black and white images, PGM for grayscale images, and PPM for color images). In the latter case, the images are directly passed to the GIMP for further processing.

xscanimage accesses image acquisition devices through the SANE (Scanner Access Now Easy) interface. The list of available devices depends on installed hardware and configuration. When invoked without an explicit devicename argument, xscanimage presents a dialog listing all known and available devices. To access an available device that is not known to the system, the devicename must be specified explicitly.

Running xscanimage under the GIMP

To run xscanimage under the GIMP , simply copy it to one of the gimp plug-ins directories. If you want to conserve disk-space, you can create a symbolic link instead. For example:

ln -s /usr/local/bin/xscanimage ~/.gimp/plug-ins/

This adds a symbolic link from the xscanimage binary to your plug-ins directory. After creating this symbolic link, xscanimage will be queried by gimp the next time it is invoked. From then on, xscanimage can be invoked through Xtns Acquire Image Device dialog...

Xtns Acquire Image contains short-cuts to the SANE devices that were available at the time the xscanimage was queried. For example, the first PNM pseudo-device is typically available as the short-cut Xtns Acquire Image pnm:0.

gimp caches these short-cuts in ~/.gimp/pluginrc. When the list of available devices changes (for example, a new scanner is installed), you should rebuild the cache. To do this, you can either touch(1) the xscanimage binary, for example:

touch /usr/local/bin/xscanimage

or delete the plug-ins cache.

Options

--display: selects the X11 display used to present the graphical user-interface.
--no-xshm: requests not to use shared memory images. Shared memory images usually enhance performance but cause problems with some X11 servers. Unless your X11 server dies when running this program, there is no need or advantage to specify this flag.
--show-events: requests the display of X11 events. This is for debugging only. --no-show-events turns off the display of X11 events.
--sync: requests a synchronous connection with the X11 server. This is for debugging purposes only.

Files

$HOME/.sane/xscanimage/xscanimage.rc: This file holds the user preferences. This file should not be manipulated directly. You should customize the program through the "Preferences" dialog.
$HOME/.sane/xscanimage/devicename.rc: For each device, there is one rc-file that holds the saved settings for that particular device. This file should not be manipulated directly. You should use the xscanimage interface to select appropriate values and then save the device settings using the Preferences Save Device Settings menu.
$HOME/.sane/preview-devicename.ppm: After acquiring a preview, xscanimage normally saves the preview image in this device-specific file. The next time the program is started up, the program can present the old preview image. This feature can be turned off through the Preferences Preview Options... dialog.
/usr/local/share/sane-style.rc: This system-wide file controls the aspects of the user-interface such as colors and fonts. It is a GTK style file and provides fine control over the visual aspects of the user-interface.
$HOME/.sane/sane-style.rc: This file serves the same purpose as the system-wide style file. If present,it takes precedence over the system wide style file.

References

sane-abaton(5), sane-agfafocus(5), sane-apple(5), saned(1), sane-dc25(5), sane-dll(5), sane-dmc(5), sane-epson(5), sane-hp(5), sane-microtek(5), sane-microtek2(5), sane-mustek(5), sane-net(5), sane-pnm(5), sane-pint(5), sane-umax(5) scanimage(1), xsane(1),