[Resolved] PHP, Scanners and Document Management

jazzlover2002

Hi, Everybody,

My name is Dave. I've written a few applications in PHP and MySQl. I'm by no means an expert, but I'm not a straight out newbie either. Although I am new here on the board.

Currently I'm talking with a company about a particular application and attempting to find an inexpensive approach to their need. Here's the deal...

They have a large plot of land with a large amount of sub-plots. Each sub- plot is owned by someone. They have a basic grid that where each cell shows the sub-plot's owner and location of that owner's file (which contains a bunch of documents like contracts, copies of ownership documents, etc.). This is all stored on paper copies in filing cabinets. They want to digitize all of this. They want a database program which will register each plot, their owner, and then they want to scan in each document in that person's file and store the images as tiff files or jpg files or whatever.

They were looking at a program called Alchemy to accomplish this, but Alchemy requires them to purchase an SDK as well as Visual Studio .Net and go through $8000 worth of training, etc. This is not an economic solution for them. So I'm trying to come up with an alternative that is a bit more palatable to their checkbook.

I believe that MySQL can handle the images (through large blobs) and the grid data entry and manipulations can be done in straight forward PHP/MySQL. The question I'm facing is how can I handle the scanning issue. Is there any way to read the data coming in from the scanner and port it into MySQL directly using PHP. Or should I look for another approach?

Any suggestions would be really helpful.

Thanks,

Dave

ZibingsCoder

Alright, right off the bat, you need to realize that there is an easy way to do this, and then two (in my mind) hard ways.

[Easy]
They scan the pictures using another program, and the PHP application scans whichever directory they want for new pictures every $x number of minutes, seconds, or milleniums, depending on their/your preference. This is...by far, the easiest, however, it may not be the type of integration that they're looking for. I'd go with this one personally, but again, may not be feasible in their minds, and gosh blasted, those darn customers are -always- right somehow.

[Hard #1]
You can create (or alter) a program to scan the pictures, and have it send the data to a PHP script which will receive the binary data and insert it into the database. Won't explain this one as much because the easy solution is still preferable.

[Hard #2] {Variation of #1}
You can also create a COM object to work in conjunction with the current scanning program that they would use. PHP can use COM objects surprisingly easily, and this would allow you to access the data this way or that. Again, won't get far into this, as you should still hope to go with the first.

Hope this helps. 🙂

litebearer

PHP being server-side, I doubt that it will interface with the actual scanning procedure.

As such, I would suggest that your client invest in a scanner with autofeed ie http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B0000DFZ6L/002-9987490-0807262?v=glance

Then perhaps this article regarding php/mysql and blob may be of some help.

http://www.devarticles.com/c/a/MySQL/Blobbing-Data-With-PHP-and-MySQL

Lite...

ZibingsCoder

Well, keep in mind, my ideas were based off of the assumption that the PHP application would be based inside the local network around the scanner. You're right in saying it's server-based, but inside a local network, you have a much easier time dealing with these types of things.

jazzlover2002

ZibingsCoder and litebearer, thanks for your suggestions. You've given me some directions to go and I think I can come up with a suitable solution for my client.

I appreciate the references litebearer and will check them out.

ZibingsCoder, you were right in your assumption about this being based inside the local area network centered around the scanner.

I appreciate the ideas. Thanks much.

Dave