Given that books were never intended to be machine-read, it's impressive that they can be scanned at all. It even looks like this machine manages to scan the books without putting much stress at all on them. From the looks of it, the books might actually end up in better condition after having been scanned! Books with loose bindings could potentially be a problem, though...
Great idea! This machine can preserve our cultural heritage from the beginning of the first print of Johannes Gutenberg in the 15th century up to todays books. Keep at it!
At the bottom of the scanning unit (the so called ScanHead) there is a gap between the glas prisms, where air is inlet. This airstream causes a low-pressure which holds the pages on both sides of the scanning unit.
Reached the top of the pages, in that moment when the ScanHead is "leaving" the 2 pages, a gentle airflow from the right side (an air-needle -the yellow small parts in the video- blows out a short air stream) turns the 2 pages and immeadiately the ScanHead moves down, to scan the next two pages and so on and so on.
How does this mechanical scanner keep the pages from sticking together? Even when doing it manually, pages often stick together and you have to use a wet finger to seperate them.
So, frankly speaking, what the ScanRobot is doing is a continous page turning and at the same time a moving up step so that it scans the 2 pages which slide smoothly over the ScanHead.
