Provided by: libsane-common_1.2.1-5_all bug

NAME

       sane-sharp - SANE backend for SHARP scanners

DESCRIPTION

       The  sane-sharp  library implements a SANE (Scanner Access Now Easy) backend that provides
       access to Sharp SCSI scanners.  This backend should be considered  beta-quality  software!
       In  the  current state it is known to work with JX-610 and JX-250 scanners. It is prepared
       for usage with the JX-330 series scanners, but we are not  able  to  test  it  with  these
       devices.

       For other Sharp scanners, it may or may not work.

       At present, the following scanners are known to work with this backend.

              Vendor  Product id:
              -----   -----------
              Sharp   JX-610
              Sharp   JX-250
              Sharp   JX-320
              Sharp   JX-330
              Sharp   JX-350

       The following scanners are detected by the backend, but not tested:

              Vendor  Product id:
              -----   -----------
              Sharp   JX-325

DEVICE NAMES

       This backend expects device names of the form:

              special

       where  special is the path-name for the special device that corresponds to a SCSI scanner.
       The special device name must be a generic SCSI device or  a  symlink  to  such  a  device.
       Under  Linux,  such  a  device  name  could  be  /dev/sga  or  /dev/sge, for example.  See
       sane-scsi(5) for details.

SCAN OPTIONS

       --mode Scan Mode. Possible settings are: Lineart (1 bit black & white scans), Gray (8  bit
              gray  scale  scans),  Lineart  Color  (bi-level  color scans), and Color (8 bit RGB
              scans). The default value is Color.

       --halftone-pattern
              Halftone  Pattern.  Available  only  for  the  JX-330  series  scanners.   Possible
              settings:  none, Dither Bayer, Dither Spiral, Dither Dispersed and Error Diffusion.
              The default value is none.

       --source
              Paper Source. This option is only available if an automatic document  feeder  or  a
              transparency  adapter  is  installed.  Possible  settings  are:  Flatbed, Automatic
              Document Feeder, and Transparency Adapter.  If an ADF or a transparency adapter  is
              installed, using it is the default selection.

       --custom-gamma
              Custom  Gamma   This option determines whether a builtin or a custom gamma table is
              used. Possible settings are: yes (enables custom gamma tables)  or  no  (enables  a
              built gamma table).

       --gamma
              Gamma. This option is only available if Custom Gamma is set to no.  Possible values
              are: 1.0 or 2.2.  The default value is 2.2.  (The JX-250 and JX-350 have  no  built
              in gamma correction; for these scanners, a gamma table is downloaded to the scanner
              by the backend.)

       --gamma-table
              Gamma Table. Allowed values: 0..255; 256 numbers  must  be  defined.   The  default
              values  are  0,  1,  2, .. 255 (i.e., gamma == 1). This table is only used for gray
              scale scans.

       --red-gamma-table
              Red Gamma Table. Allowed values: 0..255; 256 numbers must be defined.  The  default
              values are 0, 1, 2, .. 255 (i.e., gamma == 1).

       --green-gamma-table
              Green  Gamma  Table.  Allowed  values:  0..255;  256  numbers must be defined.  The
              default values are 0, 1, 2, .. 255 (i.e., gamma == 1).

       --blue-gamma-table
              Blue Gamma Table. Allowed values: 0..255; 256 numbers must be defined.  The default
              values are 0, 1, 2, .. 255 (i.e., gamma == 1).

       --resolution
              Selects  the  resolution  of  the  scanned  image. Allowed values: 30..600 (JX-330,
              JX-350 and JX-610) and 30..400 (JX-250).  The default value is 150.

       -l, -t, -x, -y
              Scan Window.  Top-left x position of scan area (-l), top-left y  position  of  scan
              area (-t), bottom right x position of scan area (-x) and bottom right y position of
              scan area (-y).  The possible settings depend on the scanner  model  and,  for  the
              JX-250 and the JX-350, also on the usage of the automatic document feeder resp. the
              transparency adapter. Please refer to  the  values  allowed  by  xscanimage(1),  or
              xsane(1).   With  scanimage(1), enter one of the following commands in order to see
              the allowed parameter values for the scan window:

              scanimage -d sharp --source "Automatic Document Feeder" --help

              scanimage -d sharp --source Flatbed --help

              scanimage -d sharp --source "Transparency Adapter" --help

       --edge emphasis
              Edge emphasis. This option  is  not  available  for  the  JX-250  and  the  JX-350.
              Possible settings: None, Middle, Strong, and Blur.  The default value is None.

       --threshold
              Sets the threshold for black and white pixels in lineart mode.  Possible values are
              1..255.  The default value is 128.  This option is  only  available  in  scan  mode
              lineart.

       --threshold-red
              Sets  the threshold for the red component of a pixel in in lineart color scan mode.
              Possible values are 1..255.  The  default  value  is  128.   This  option  is  only
              available in scan mode color lineart.

       --threshold-green
              Sets  the  threshold  for  the  green component of a pixel in in lineart color scan
              mode. Possible values are 1..255.  The default value is 128.  This option  is  only
              available in scan mode color lineart .

       --threshold-blue
              Sets the threshold for the blue component of a pixel in in lineart color scan mode.
              Possible values are 1..255.  The  default  value  is  128.   This  option  is  only
              available in scan mode color lineart.

       --lightcolor
              Sets the color of the light source. Possible values are white, red, green and blue.
              The default value is white.  This option is only available in  scan  modes  lineart
              color and color.

ADF USAGE

       If  a  paper  jam  occurrs,  the  maintenance cover must be opened and closed, even if the
       jammed paper can be removed without opening the maintenance cover.  Otherwise,  the  error
       condition will not be cleared.

CONFIGURATION

       The  contents of the sharp.conf file is a list of options and device names that correspond
       to Sharp scanners. Empty lines and lines beginning with a hash mark (#) are  ignored.  See
       sane-scsi(5) for details about device names.

       Lines  setting an option start with the key word option, followed by the option's name and
       the option's value. At present,  three  options  are  defined:  buffers,  buffersize,  and
       readqueue.

       Options  defined  at the start of sharp.conf apply to all devices; options defined after a
       device name apply to this device.

       The options buffers and readqueue are only significant if the backend has been compiled so
       that  for each scan a second process is forked (switch USE_FORK in sharp.c ). This process
       reads the scan data from the scanner and writes this data into a block of  shared  memory.
       The  parent process reads the data from this memory block and delivers it to the frontend.
       The options control the size and usage of this shared memory block.

       option buffers defines the number of buffers used. The smallest number allowed is 2.

       option buffersize defines the size of one buffer. Since  each  buffer  is  filled  with  a
       single  read  command  sent  to the scanner, its size is limited automatically to the size
       allowed by the operating system or by the Sane SCSI library  for  SCSI  read  commands.  A
       buffer size of 128 kB or 256 kB is recommended for scan resolutions of 300 dpi and above.

       option  readqueue  defines how many read commands to be sent to the scanner are queued. At
       present, the Sane SCSI library supports queued read commands only for for Linux. For other
       operating systems, option readqueue should be set to 0. For Linux, option readqueue should
       be set to 2. Larger values than 2 for option readqueue are not reasonable in  most  cases.
       option buffers should be greater than option readqueue.

Performance Considerations

       This  section  focuses  on  the  problem of stops of the scanner's carriage during a scan.
       Carriage stops happen mainly with the JX-250. This scanner  has  obviously  only  a  small
       internal  buffer  compared to its speed. That means that the backend must read the data as
       fast as possible from the scanner in order to avoid carriage stops.

       Even the JX-250 needs only less than 10 seconds for a 400 dpi A4 gray  scale  scan,  which
       results  in  a data transfer rate of more than 1.6 MB per second. This means that the data
       produced by the scanner must be processed fairly fast. Due to the small internal buffer of
       the  JX-250,  the  backend  must  issue  a read request for the next data block as soon as
       possible after reading a block of data in order to avoid carriage stops.

       Stops of the carriage can be caused by the following reasons:

              - too much "traffic" on the SCSI bus
              - slow responses by the backend to the scanner,
              - a program which processes the data acquired by the backend too slow.

       Too much "traffic" on the SCSI bus: This happens for example, if hard disks are  connected
       to  the  same  SCSI  bus  as  the scanner, and when data transfer from/to these hard disks
       requires a considerable part of the SCSI bandwidth during a scan. If this is the case, you
       should consider to connect the scanner to a separate SCSI adapter.

       Slow  responses  by the backend to the scanner: Unfortunately, UNIX-like operating systems
       generally have no real time capabilities.  Thus there is no guarantee that the backend  is
       under  any  circumstances  able  to  communicate  with the scanner as fast as required. To
       minimize this problem, the backend should be compiled so that a separate reader process is
       forked: Make sure that USE_FORK is defined when you compile sharp.c.  If slow responses of
       the backend remain to be problem, you could try to reduce the load  of  the  system.  Even
       while the backend and the reader process need only a minor amount of processor time, other
       running processes can cause an increase in the time delay between two time slices given to
       the  reader  process.  On slower systems, such an increased delay can be enough to cause a
       carriage stop with the JX-250.  For Linux, the usage of the SG driver  version  2.1.36  or
       above  is  recommended,  because it supports, in combination with the SCSI library of Sane
       version 1.0.2, command queueing within the kernel.  This queueing implementation, combined
       with a buffer size of at least 128 kB, should avoid most carriage stops.

       Slow  processing  of  the  scan  data:  An example for this situation is the access to the
       scanner via a 10 MBit Ethernet, which is definitely too slow to transfer the scan data  as
       fast  as  they  are  produced by the scanner. If you have enough memory available, you can
       increase option buffers, so that an entire image can be stored in these buffers.

       In order to see, if the backend is too slow or if the further processing of  the  data  is
       too slow, set the environment variable SANE_DEBUG_SHARP to 1. When a scan is finished, the
       backend writes the line "buffer full conditions: nn" to stderr. If nn  is  zero,  carriage
       stops  are  caused  by too slow responses of the backend or too much "traffic" on the SCSI
       bus. If nn is greater than zero, the backend had to wait nn times until a buffer has  been
       processed  by  the  frontend. (Please note that option buffers must be greater than option
       readqueue in order to get useful output for "buffer full conditions".)

FILES

       /etc/sane.d/sharp.conf
              The backend configuration file.

       /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/sane/libsane-sharp.a
              The static library implementing this backend.

       /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/sane/libsane-sharp.so
              The shared library implementing this  backend  (present  on  systems  that  support
              dynamic loading).

ENVIRONMENT

       SANE_DEBUG_SHARP
              If  the  library was compiled with debug support enabled, this environment variable
              controls the debug level for this backend.  E.g., a value of 128 requests all debug
              output to be printed.  Smaller levels reduce verbosity.

KNOWN PROBLEMS

       1. ADF Mode
              After  several  ADF scans, the scanner moves the carriage back to the idle position
              and back to ADF scan position, before a scan starts. We do not know, if this  is  a
              problem of the scanner, or if this is a bug of the backend. At present, the scanner
              must power off and on to stop this annoying behaviour.

       2. Threshold level does not work (only JX-610)

       3. The maximum resolution is limited to 600 dpi(JX-610 supported to 1200  dpi)  resp.  400
       dpi (JX-250)

       4.  If  the  JX250  is  used with an ADF, the following situation can occur: After several
       scans, the scanner moves, after loading a new sheet of paper, the  carriage  to  the  idle
       position,  and  then back to the position used for ADF scans. This happens for every scan,
       in contrast to the calibration, which is done after 10 scans. (For  the  calibration,  the
       carriage is also moved to the idle position.) We do not know if this behavior is caused by
       the backend, or if it is a bug in the firmware of the scanner.

       5. Usage of a transparency adapter (film scan unit) is supported, but not tested.

SEE ALSO

       sane(7), sane-scsi(5)

AUTHORS

       Kazuya Fukuda, Abel Deuring

CREDITS

       The Sharp backend is based on the Canon backend written by Helmut Koeberle

       Parts of this man page are a plain copy of sane-mustek(5) by David Mosberger-Tang, Andreas
       Czechanowski and Andreas Bolsch

                                           11 Jul 2008                              sane-sharp(5)