Electronic ASLRB...?

[Chas Argent]

Folks-

I know very little about OCR (optical character recognition) software but was wondering if anyone had used it to create their own personal electronic ASL rule book? I'd like to look at making one for my own use and wondered if anyone had experience with this sort of thing.

Not sure if this is the right place for this but it is about rules :cheeky:

Thanks,
Chas

 

[Dr Zaius]

I know several people have mentioned that thy have the ASLRB in .pdf format, but I'm not exactly sure what process they used to produce it. I guess it could have been scanned, but that seems like a lot of work.

 

[Commissar Piotr]

Hi Girls

Some scan it as pictures, some type it all by hand and some use OCR.
Mine is OCR-scanned and then edited as the OCR programs not always get the characters right.
The nice thing with having t in text instead of a piture is the possibility to search the rulebook with the software and so helps greatly in finding different parts of the rules that adress a certain aspect of the game.

 

[da priest]

OCR, used Omnipagepro for text and tables(newest one does very good on tables).

Then converted to HTML, so I could link all the references, and add in errata easily.

Scanned pix separately and inserted.

Takes a year or so for first time, then updates like Chapter H for the Brits takes a month or so, if you're not lazy(got halfway thru and stopped to move), still haven't finished or added the J5 stuff...sigh.. :argh:

 

[Dr Zaius]

OCR, used Omnipagepro for text and tables(newest one does very good on tables).

Then converted to HTML, so I could link all the references, and add in errata easily.

Scanned pix separately and inserted.

Takes a year or so for first time, then updates like Chapter H for the Brits takes a month or so, if you're not lazy(got halfway thru and stopped to move), still haven't finished or added the J5 stuff...sigh..

I imagine that's one way to thoroughly learn your way around the rulebook too.

 

[Chris Milne]

Currently adopting Ron's approach to it. Works well, and you get pretty proficient at scanning the scanned text (!) and picking out the errors.

I'd say html is the way to go. Much smaller than pdfs, easy to adjust, and linkable. In-line gifs are a pain, though.

 

[Chas Argent]

Ron & Chris-

At what resolution are you scanning your pages?

 

[da priest]

Ron & Chris-

At what resolution are you scanning your pages?

For pix 100 dpi to 200, depends on the needed clarity, examples higher, bland counters(DM, etc) lower.

Text, whatever Omnipage uses for scanning "magazines"...

 

[WaterRabbit]

I recently tried a program called ABBYY Fine Reader v7.0. I pulled it down from download.com. I seems to do a very good job with documents that have both text and graphics. I have tested scanning about 10 pages from the ASL RB. It is fairly easy to block out the text and graphic images and then convert them to several different formats. It took them into Word to test converting them to HTML eventually. I scanned them at 600 dpi which gives very good results, but large files (plus about 30 sec / page to scan).

My major problem is that the rulebook is not printed square to the page so it is a little hard to perfectly align the images. Not a big issue for the text, but if you take the header graphic on each page it comes out slightly crooked. :crosseye:

 

[morrigu]

Database

Hi guys.

I scanned the RB & ran it through a ocr.
Then I started inserting everything into a database (chapter A and B are in by now - neverending job) and use a perl script to access the database.
Databases are the best if you want searchable data and no fixed representation.

Greetz ... ollo

 

[zgrose]

Just off the cuff, I'm guessing a word processor will do a word search just as fast as any database and the source material would be in a more portable format at the same time.

 

[graydo]

I recently tried a program called ABBYY Fine Reader v7.0. I pulled it down from download.com. I seems to do a very good job with documents that have both text and graphics.

Fine Reader is a good OCR program but based on my experience I'd say Omnipage is better.

dave

 

[morrigu]

Just off the cuff, I'm guessing a word processor will do a word search just as fast as any database and the source material would be in a more portable format at the same time.

But word prcessors dont give you the convenience of a database.
I just type "You Say What" and get just the rules containing this phrase in a neatly formatted webpage.
Also all rule references are a) links and b) have a context-bubble (or whatever you call these) containing the rule, in case one just wanted to glance at it.
Abbreviations are also spelled out in these bubbles.
Its sortable - has a nice tree in the left frame to navigate.
I relly prefer that to a word-processor.
And the database is easy to dump to, say, html, xml, plaintext, ...

 

[zgrose]

But word prcessors dont give you the convenience of a database.
I just type "You Say What" and get just the rules containing this phrase in a neatly formatted webpage.

Well, you do get that with the word processor...

Also all rule references are a) links and b) have a context-bubble (or whatever you call these) containing the rule, in case one just wanted to glance at it.

But that is certainly more helpful.

Abbreviations are also spelled out in these bubbles.
Its sortable - has a nice tree in the left frame to navigate.
I relly prefer that to a word-processor.
And the database is easy to dump to, say, html, xml, plaintext, ...

You've obviously spent a lot of time on a it and sounds like a neato system. For me, once the rules were in a text format, Law of Diminishing Returns would start to kick in.

 

[Chris Milne]

Same here. The database sounds very neat indeed, but I don't have the expertise to go about constructing one. I just have one html file for each rule section (A1, A2, etc.)

I found it sped things up to deal with it in chunks. Did the text first, then moved on to putting the graphics in (but, frankly, most of those aren't necessary).

 

[sturmovik]

I've done a pdf after translation of chap A and I keep it handy in my Palm and it helps quite well with just a word processor.

 

[Larry]

I noticed that the V2 ASLRB corrections pages on the MMP site are in PDF, text format. If MMP sold a solid copy protected PDF version of the RB, it would make the makeshift versions obsolete. The PDF pages would be searchable.

An uncopyable cd/dvd would be the ticket.

 

[Ole Boe]

An uncopyable cd/dvd would be the ticket.

If MMP managed to create an uncopyable CD/DVD, selling ASL would probably no longer be in their minds, since they would all become billionaires from selling this fantastic new technology.

So far, the only way to create uncopyable CD/DVDs are to break them in two or something similar.

 

[Larry]

"uncopyable" = not worth the hassle.

The movie industry and pc gaming industry put out disks that are more difficult to copy. Microsoft "activates" product with a code to keep people from using copies of software over and over again. Could someone crack the code to unlock the contents of a disk? Sure.

For an example of industry addressing the e-book copy issue, see http://www.cbprotect.com/.

MMP cannot realistically stop people from scanning paper pages. With an e-books type of format, they would at least be able to charge for the service and recapture some of the market. From this discussion, there is clearly a market for an eASLRB.

 

[UXB]

eASLRB: too early to tell?

One could argue that the rules aren't any good without the counters and
maps. So why not make the rules freely available and only charge for the
maps and counters?

I would imagine that the whole pricing scheme would be changed. With the
overhead of printing paper copies of the rulebook gone, all the profit would
be in the modules.

However, this would have a really bad effect on VASL, since you only need
a rule book and scenarios to play VASL.

This is just a variant of the music download debate. I think the owners of
the ASL copyright should make a profit on ASL. Right now, it's too early to
know if an eASLRB would be profitable.

Another model is the "subscription". Like virus scanner companies.
You have to pay for the "latest update" by subscription. So you give away
the eASLRB, pay for maps and counters, and chapter H notes, and pay for
updated pages.

There is something in paper books that eBooks just lack. I hate reading .pdf
files at work. I hate online-documentation in general. There's an ease of use
that books have that electronic versions just don't have.

Finally, an eBook requires a reader. What formats of readers will be
supported? Palm? Tablet? PC/Laptop? I certainly don't want to have to
refer to my PC every time I'm playing ASL. I don't own a PalmPilot. Thus
if the ASLRB is in electronic format, youll have to give the option of a
printed copy as well, otherwise your already-small market gets even smaller.


Just my 7 1/2 cents.