Web TWAIN scanning solution for ASP.Net?

Question

I know some of you will discourage scanning through a web page, unfortunately, it is a requirement.

I want to view my options in the situation, and maybe, some of you may have already gone through this and had a workable solution.

Problem is, we need to have a universal approach in scanning documents through the webpage without any external helper apps that does this for us.

I know this is a tall order, I would simply want to know the best next thing.

Thank you!

Solution 1

I've seen this done with a Java applet successfully. ActiveX might also work.

Here is what appears to be a working TWAIN applet.

Here is question with answers related to TWAIN and Java.

Solution 2

You can't do it with just a browser and JavaScript, full stop, you'll need to include something else -- a Java applet, a .Net "No Touch Deployment" application (mostly IE-only), a Flash or Shockwave application, something like that. In the Windows world, Flash has a huge installed base on browsers, but I don't know if it can do what you want (not knowing much about Flash). Next up would be a signed Java applet.

The user will then need to give your thingy permission to access local resources, a process that varies depending on the technology used. It's quite a simple process with a signed Java applet, much more involved and awkward for the end user with a .Net "No Touch Deployment" app.

Solution 3

I've successfully used Morena for implementing web scanning. It requires only that the user have Java installed. (With older versions of Java you can run out of memory when processing the scanned image. I had to cut large images into 100 pixel strips and send them individually to the server.)

Here's a small scan-to-email project that I used Morena with.

Comments

[T.J. Crowder]

That applet relies on a custom DLL being on the end user's computer.

[phoebus]

It's still a potential jumping-off point.

[Martin Ongtangco]

thanks! i have to catch my Java lessons back then...

[Spike0xff]

Customers have used our EZTwain library from Java but I'm not sure in a signed applet. The company that specializes in Java+TWAIN is Gnome with their Morena framework. Hey, I can't put a hyperlink in a comment? Quelle bummer.

[Martin Ongtangco]

i had problems with this one with scanner feeders.

[Robby Shaw]

ActiveX of course works, you can check out this demo: www.dynamsoft.com/demo/DWT/online_demo_scan.aspx. If you open it with IE, then it will ActiveX tech