MultiScanner : Getting The Most Out Of It

Oct 04, 2008 11 Comments by Ravindra

Last week I posted a brief coverage on the Nokia Multiscanner version extracted from E-series to be used with other s60 3rd edition phones( Actually this is the same version that is available in E66 and E71 ).At the time of my post I didn’t have enough time to play with it, as I posted it as soon as I got it.So if you can remember I mentioned that the Text reader application isn’t giving out accurate results and I’d rather prefer to stick on to the ABBY BCR,even for the Business card reading,but after using the Multiscanner in the following days I was convinced that my quick impression on this little application wasn’t quite right. Actually the truth is, during the last few days I used it it turned out to be the best optical reading application I’ve ever used,and my N95 8GB made its way to the top eyeopener among my friends and cousins,as it did with the Barcode reader and the ABBY reader. The misleading point for my decision in the last report was a simply,but the turning point for the application which can be found in the settings menu. To make it easy to understand I thought of write a complete walkthrough review of the application.

First lets take a look at the Card reader application,even with the default settings it does come up with satisfactorily good Optical character reading capabilities,most of the time you’ll get accurate text output. The only problem you’ll face is when there are logos and other symbols in the card it might tend to read them mistakenly for text. So for this and false output results of the Text Reader that I mentioned in my last post, the solution is there in the settings menu, all you have to do is set the “Layout Adjusting” option on.

What does this do?, you won’t notice the huge difference it makes until you capture a snapshot of a text field or a Business card. But when you start using the application with “Layout Adjusting” on,as soon after you scan something, you’ll be prompted into a snapshot of the text field and on top of it a dotted box marquee with three circles (Vertices),two at the edges opposite to each other and the other one in the middle, by dragging the ones at the edges you can scale and with the middle one you can move the box selecting the text area to be recognized,making it easier to the application to read only the required field. See how it recognize the text areas in Cards and allows us to edit the area accordingly,

check out the above screenshots to see clearly the amount of maneuverability offered in Layout Adjusting.

And the Results of the 2 Business cards I tried to read are shown below,The original card and the extracted data respectively,

Card 1 :

Card 2 :

The reading capabilities are amazing and they can be added to the contacts in an instance. The best thing that you get with the “Layout Adjusting” is that you can even read the letters in logos as demonstrated above.

And now the Text Reader,same procedure applies and the yielded result can be saved as a note or either sent as a message.See the screenshots below of an article I scanned and tested.

Original Document :

Result, Without the “Layout adjusting “ on,Some characters aren’t pick correctly.

Result, With the “Layout Adjusting” on.

See how it extracts the text as it is,

Think everything is pretty clear with the above illustrations, and hope the scanner in you pocket may get busy, So please give your feedback in the comments regarding this application (especially from E-series users) and have an interesting weekend.

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11 Responses to “MultiScanner : Getting The Most Out Of It”

  1. Aditya Singhvi says:

    Privacy is an important aspect that we bloggers must protect. But Ravindra, if the document photgraphed is showing those details, then why have you cut those portions out in the screenshot…? :P

  2. Ravindra says:

    I know that very well bro,that's why I cut them off,but then when I check their websites those details are publicly available,So thought if won't do and bad to them.Anyway If I had to sensor all of them I might be in a big trouble in convincing the accuracy of the applications Card reading abilities.
    Also a business card is a way of of revealing personal details to public with their prior permissions,isn't that so?

  3. Ravindra says:

    @Aditya,Anyway to be fair I corrected it.Thanks for pointing out.

  4. Aditya Singhvi says:

    No problems! :) I have been trying that application and I've been getting gibberish… will give it a shot once again! :)

    And 'Switch' application is working now. Nokia Care flashed the phone… I can transfer my contact between S60 phones again!

  5. limi says:

    Hi, thank you for instructions, and download link, it works superb on N82!
    ..just one thing, living in Tokyo I don't use English daily..but still amazing software! Am real curious how it'll recognize non-latin characters in its future?! as it says in release notes..

  6. Ravindra says:

    @limi,Currently it supports only English and Finnish,but it hasn't graduated yet.So Final version will add more functions and Languages,better keep an Eye on your regional Nokia site for Native language support release.

  7. limi says:

    Hi, thank you for instructions, and download link, it works superb on N82!
    ..just one thing, living in Tokyo I don't use English daily..but still amazing software! Am real curious how it'll recognize non-latin characters in its future?! as it says in release notes..

  8. Ravindra says:

    @limi,Currently it supports only English and Finnish,but it hasn't graduated yet.So Final version will add more functions and Languages,better keep an Eye on your regional Nokia site for Native language support release.

  9. Steven says:

    este programa funciona para el nokia n73 respondanme porfavor

  10.   Download Nokia Multiscanner: OCR App to Scan Business Cards, Documents & Translate Languages in Images by Tech[dot]Blog says:

    [...] complete review with screenshots can be found at Symbian-Lifelog. You can download the extracted version of Nokia Multiscanner for S60 3rd Edition [...]

  11. Nokia S60 News and Reviews says:

    Another Hidden Nokia Application – Nokia Multiscanner…

    SymbianV3 reports the finding of a useful tool not shown on any of the Nokia sites… at least none that we are aware of. The Nokia Multiscanner. According to my Symbian-Guru, the Nokia Multiscanner is a tool that’s available to…

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