ManuCapture is a free, opensource software application designed by Factum to work with all of our camera-based book and manuscript recording systems. It has several features that make it a user-friendly and straightforward application, which also adheres to international metadata standards.
These include: 

• dual camera live view for camera alignment;
• editable page sequence (allows the user to repeat, add or delete images from a sequence);
• storage of JPG, RAW and TIFF image formats for long-term preservation (AIP). For reference, a 100TB storage can store up to 767,500 individual pages in RAW, TIFF and JPG.

The software was conceived for a two-camera system similar to the Replica 360 Recto/Verso system designed for ARCHiVe and the Portable Book Scanner that was custom-made for to record fragile manuscripts in Dagestan. It is compatible with over 240 different camera models, and with any camera setup using GPhoto or similar commands, and can be configured for continuous light source or for flash-to-camera flash synchronisation. ManuCapture uses an Arduino-based trigger board to synchronize dual-camera image capture, as well as for image preview, storage processes, and to support multiple shutter configurations.

The user interface is simple and optimised for ‘one-click’ actions (with either mouse or via touch screens) for performing useful tasks such as dual-page preview, zoom, recording queue and page crop editing - more in-depth tasks require the additional usage of a photo editing software, such as Adobe Lightroom.

The software integrates a set of important open-source tools supported by a wide community of users and developers, including GPhoto2 for camera control, Processing/Java for the user interface, raw image processing software such as Rawtherapee, ImageMagick and DCRAW, and standards-based archiving with ICA-ATOM.

Note: The development of ManuCapture is currently in its Beta phase. The software has been developed and tested in Linux and a MacOS version is currently in progress. As with everything, there is room for improvement and Factum Foundation is actively exploring new options to make the scanners even more streamlined and effective. If you wish to contact us regarding a potential partnership or collaboration, write to info@factumfoundation.org. 

Typical setup: 2 Canon DSLR cameras, either 5D (24mpx) or 5DSr (50mpx). The lenses affixed to these are Canon brand of varying focal length (mainly 50mm or 35mm since these provide minimal optical distortion). A 50mpx sensor on a 5DSR using a 50/1.4 lens records 34mpx of detail onto a 50mpx sensor (according to DxO’s Modulation Transfer Function (MTF) graphs of various Canon and Sigma lenses). 

The guidelines in this example of a double page spreade have not been positioned correctly. In this case, all the user needs to do is click on the double page that needs to be replaced, click the Repeat option on the right and take a new picture. © Factum Foundation

This is the corrected double page spread, which replaces the previous image. As you can see, the guidelines are positioned much closer to the edges of the manuscript. © Factum Foundation

For more information on ManuCapture and our archive recording projects contact info@factumfoundation.org.

The design and development of the ManuCapture software was led by Enrique Esteban. The software was developed by several contributors and supported by Factum Foundation for Digital Technology in Preservation.