Turn an Optical Mouse into a Scanner

John H. Doe writes "This student was bored one day, so he decided to see what the world looked like from the bottom of his optical mouse. He jury rigged a few wires to his parallel port and wrote a program to take a look. And seeing as how one thing a mouse does is to detect motion, made it into a ghetto b&w handscanner. "

And this is what he saw through that mouse's eyes:

[roman_mir]

Nothing for you to see here. Please move along.

I envy

[Irashtar]

I envy this hacker's skills, B+W? I'd only see red.

Re:I envy

[Geoffreyerffoeg]

Good point...since it's only a red light, would it only pick up red wavelengths?

Would that further mean that optical mice don't work on a pure blue surface?

cool, but eh

[PlayfullyC1ever]

Pretty cool, wish it could of had better results, image is crap and doesnt even look like there is anywhere you can go to make a cheapscanner from a $15 optical mouse, but interesting hack, might try it myself over the summer.

Re:cool, but eh

[Tx]

doesnt even look like there is anywhere you can go to make a cheapscanner

Dunno, improving the software to match up successive images better should be prefectly possible, it's hard to say exactly how good a result could be achieved, but I'd say a lot better than the posted image. You could also hack in multiple coloured LEDs, and thus possibly make a colour scanner. Probably never actually be useful though, hard to say.

Re:cool, but eh

[CastrTroy]

I have a canon scanner which uses LIDE (LED Indirect Exposure) technology to do the scanner rather than the older style light bulb. You can't actually see the LEDs, it uses a lot of really small ones, but I think it has R, G, and B LEDs. I think he is just applying the same technology, only without as many lights, and with not as much precision.

ah yes, slashdot whiners

[subtropolis]

wish it could of had better results, image is crap... So, which is more pathetic? The hack or this response?

groovy

[Anonymous Coward]

Groovy .. may come handy in places where scanners need special permissions.

Re:groovy

[Teun]

places where scanners need special permissions

Indeed my first thought, paranoid security drones might find this a terrorists wet dream.

Hey cool ! ...

[bushboy]

... He even used it to create his web page.

Re:Hey cool ! ...

[d474]

You too huh? I thought something was wrong with my browser. The text got warped under his pictures... and too think this guy can make a scanner from a mouse but can't make a normal web page is sweet irony.

Re:Hey cool ! ...

[amembleton]

The text got warped under his pictures

I thought that at first too, but soon realised that it was just some text at the bottom of one of his screen shots [utwente.nl].

Re:Hey cool ! ...

[leshert]

And "too think" that someone can criticize the web page of an amazing hack but can neither spell nor tell the difference between the bottom of a screenshot and magically "warped" text is not sweet irony. It's par for the Slashdot course.

Re:Hey cool ! ...

[d474]

And "to think" a slashdot reader would miss the sarcasm of my post...impossible!

If a mouse can do this...

[michelcultivo]

...imagine if you get a Geforce to do password crack. Duh!

Wow

[Q-Hack!]

This is definatly the ultimate in low tech.

Still, it is ingenuis.

Re:Wow

[non0score]

Yeah...this low tech thing also reminds me of someone trying to use a sound card as an oscilloscope (through the mic)...or how someone used the sensor on a logitech trackball device to track how a fly walks (the fly walks on a light ball colored in such a way that the sensor could still read it).

Re:Wow

[ian_mackereth]

Low tech? You're using an 18x18 pixel video camera that takes over a thousand snapshots a second of the shadows of your desk, then uses a DSP to calculate the differences between those images and thus how far and in what direction the mouse has moved, and you call it LOW TECH?!!

And all this in a chip that costs the manufacturer about a buck.

Perspective!

Re:Wow

[dorkygeek]

You must be new to here, no?

Re:Wow

[dorkygeek]

Whatever it is that you are smoking, please give me some, because no matter how hard I try, I just can't find the uid of that [slashdot.org] Anonymous Coward!

Well

[Z00L00K]

At least this hack is a little funny. I have been wondering about a mouse with force-feedback and then I can't wait until I see the mouse wander over the edge of the table when infected by some strange virus...

What resolution is it possible to get with the laser mice that you can get?

MX1000 = 800DPI

[eddy]

Logitech claims 800DPI for the MX1000.

Nevermind.

[eddy]

Sorry, that's movement resolution (after whatever processing they do). Thinko on my part. I'm sure the sensor isn't all that. Still be interesting to "see" though.

Re:Nevermind.

[cnettel]

One might be able to deconvolute (anti-anti-alias, so to say) the picture from the sensor, but I would imagine that to achieve a stable 800 DPI resolution, one would actually need a sensor with a comparable, or better, sensor... unless the 800 DPI figure is a VaporNumber (TM).

Re:Nevermind.

[SharpFang]

Actually, that's what the sensor+optics is. The mouse is likely to report movement by one pixel reliably, unless it does some good sub-pixel image comparison (which isn't impossible...).

Thing is you can get about any DPI you desire (up to the limit of light wave length) from such a rig by replacing the optics. You're still stuck with readout area of some 16x16 pixels though, so lower resolution = better, meaning less waving your hand to "wipe" whole area of the document.

Re:Well

[DrSkwid]

Like this one [google.co.uk]?

a spy scanner!

[roman_mir]

Just use any sensitive document as a mouse pad......

This is what the original design was for: Capshare

[steve_l]

This is very funny from a historical note.

Most optical mice have a chipset from agilent (look for the * logo on the bottom). It was originally designed for a portable scanner, HP Capshare, that had battery+scanner+IR link on it.

The trick in the box is stiching software; you would scan back and forth, turning it on a page without lifting it, and the firmware would work out what the content was. Like optical mice, it doesnt work on shiny pages.

The product crashed and burned, but at least the silicion could be turned into mouse silicon instead, and in the process actually increasing the selling price of a mouse. Who wants a no-good ball mouse, the junk you get bundled with a PC?

I still have a capshare scanner; its actually quite useful for discreetly scanning bits of books at the local university.
I have an inherited

Re:This is what the original design was for: Capsh

[boomgopher]

...at the local university I have an inherited

Dude, you're the man - a whole university?

Re:This is what the original design was for: Capsh

[steve_l]

> Dude, you're the man - a whole university?

Only a little one, that issues degrees and doctorates by email. you may have got some of our adverts in your inbox.

We specialise in a limited number of courses
-nigerian banking
-0EM software
-Phishing; basic and advanced.

The Phishing course is becoming more popular, as we actually offer a discount on the degree if you successfully collect the SSNs and banking details of a thousand new individuals. You may also be interested in a doctorate, though as PhDs require

more of the sam? go here:

[Anonymous Coward]

http://hackaday.com/ [hackaday.com]

confused

[digitalsushi]

Are we supposed to send him a gift scanner? Clothes? Food? Matches for starting fires? :D

no, maybe you do

[subtropolis]

because you have nothing better to do than to read about this on /. and then whine about it.

Scan-mouse

[massivefoot]

It was promtply purchased by DARPA on a hunch that it might be able to see through concrete...

But the real question is...

[EdipisReks]

could he turn a flatbed scanner into an optical mouse?

Re:But the real question is...

[pesc]

Or turn a camera-equipped mobile phone into an optical mouse? Preferrably with bluetooth support using the built-in phone BT chip! It should only be some programming to get it to work, right? Finally a sensible use for cameraphones.

Re:But the real question is...

[ginotech]

that would kill your battery. still a pretty neat idea though.

Re: It has been done.

[chrestomanci]

Someone has already done it.

Check out wabbellab It is a marble madness style game for Nokia Series 60 smart-phones, that uses the phone's camera to detect tilt of the phone. Source code is available under a GNU Licence. [freenet.de]

I have a copy on my phone. It works, but is quite hard to use.

Re:But the real question is...

[roman_mir]

Or turn a camera-equipped mobile phone into an optical mouse? ... Finally a sensible use for cameraphones. - I don't think the word 'sensible' means what you think it means.

Re:But the real question is...

[emj]

Yes it is, almost all cellphones grant access to the camera via the Java api, but bluetooth is abit morestateof the art it accsesible on most good phones these days (such as k750). The problem is that Micro java is really shutdown on most phones and requires user acknowledgement each time it want to acces he camera.

Oh dear!

[Skiron]

Now the cats out the bag, I expect the next generation of MS worms and viruses won't need keyloggers - they will just WATCH you type in your passwords/CC numbers etc...

It's useful enough...

[Anonymous Coward]

...to make a cheap barcode scanner. Barcodes have checksums, and if every other pass works it's good enough.

Re:It's useful enough...

[ZorroXXX]

A bar code reader also stuck me as a useful modification. I wrote C code for interpreting the pulse from a bar code pen/wand as part of a project the last year of my engineering education, and replacing the pen with an optical mouse will more or less give an identical project, so this should by all means doable.

Because of that I did learn a bit about the different types of bar codes. This was in 1995 so the following is just based on memory, I might have some minor errors in the following. The bar code

It's all biological...

[__aaclcg7560]

I heard of building a better mousetrap... but hacking a mouse?! If you're going to experiment with biology, just hack a frog and leave the mouse out of this.

Re:It's all biological...

[Thomas Shaddack]

You can have it both ways. Reverse the polarity of the power, and the sensor chip will croak.

Re:It's all biological...

[__aaclcg7560]

It's probably the moral implications of the question being asked. If you can remote control a frog (or a cockroach [wireheading.com]), it won't be long before someone can remote control a human. I noticed that a lot of science instructors are incapable or unwilling to discuss how science can be used for both good and evil.

impressive

[jpellino]

if only because some of my students won't stop shining the mouse into the iSight...

Server seems a bit slow

[bogie]

At least for me the page didn't load at first.

http://sprite.student.utwente.nl.nyud.net:8090/~je roen/projects/mouseeye/ [nyud.net]

Re:Server seems a bit slow

[fatphil]

That's because he turned his old Zip drive into a web-server.

Jury rig?

[AkA lexC]

Isnt it Jerry rig? as in botched german (Jerry) equipment in WWII

Re:Jury rig?

[dbretton]

This is definitely off-topic, interesting nonetheless.

Take a look here: http://www.bartleby.com/61/70/J0087000.html [bartleby.com]

Re:Jury rig?

[TiredOfCrap]

Not necassarily: The term "Jury Rig" has been used at sea for centuries to describe recreating a rig from various components, usually when the main rig was lost in a storm or battle.

Re:Jury rig?

[Inda]

Jury Rig is also correct. I have heard the Yanks say it before. I never made the connection to WWII but I suspect this might be true. Jerry Rig and Jury Rig sound so similar that the British accent to American accent translation probably has something to do with it too.

It's 'de jure' (was:Jury rig?)

[FooAtWFU]

The term "jury rig" comes from Latin, of course, "de jure" (pronounced about 'day jury') meaning "for the day".

Re:Jury rig?

[gizmonic]

I love this guy's site for things like this. Not much newer information, but a little more thorough.

http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-jur1.htm [worldwidewords.org]

B&W Handscanner?

[soulsteal]

Seriously, who the hell needs black and white scans of hands? THE GOVERNMENT, THAT'S WHO!

Paranoid twin powers, ACTIVATE! Form of Tinfoil, shape of Hat!

The "sun-like mark" on the chip...

[CMiYC]

... is from Agilent Technologies (which just spun off its semiconductor business). For 65-years Agilent was also known was "Hewlett-Packard." In late 1999, HP spun everything but computers and prnters off into Agilent. (This past Dec 1, Agilent's semiconductors became Avago.)

Just thought I'd throw that out there.

Further modifications=Barcode scanner?

[Gizmoguy]

With a bi more tweaking to the code, the mouse could possibly be made into a linear, perhaps even 2D :-)) barcode scanner. Barcode scanners can be expensive. Optical mice don't come cheap, but cost significantly less than a barcode scanner, could this be the next generation of the CueCat, made at home? Also, your killing two birds with one stone, as it's multifunctional. Mind you, it still isn't as good as that MP3 playing toothbrush I got for Christmas :-))

Re:Further modifications=Barcode scanner?

[binarytoaster]

With a bi more tweaking to the code, the mouse could possibly be made into a linear, perhaps even 2D...

So what you're saying is right now it scans in 3D? Holy shit, and he called it "ghetto"...

It would appear...

[Robber Baron]

...that his mousepad is white and has the number "4", followed by a "0", and another "4" on it

What about barcodes

[Senzei]

When I first saw this I thought it would be useful to turn the mouse into a barcode reader. A quick look at prices shows them starting at around forty bucks. If this could be made to work roughly as well as the barcode readers it might be pretty useful.

Re:What about barcodes

[blincoln]

When I first saw this I thought it would be useful to turn the mouse into a barcode reader.

I think you'd have to do a lot of image correction in software in order to get something stable enough for that. In his example app, there's way too much alignment error between samples.

Also, one of the reasons regular barcode scanners are a bit more expensive is that they use a laser with a motorized mirror (or something along those lines) so that you can do the scanning from a distance and the beam scans the barcode

Cue Cat

[bangzilla]

I seem to recall that something similar was done with that unmitigating disaster known as cue cat :-) Y'know - I don't really care how crap the images are - the point of this execise is all about hacking because it's there. I think this is pretty cool. Would I every replicate this hack or have value for it? -- probably not. But it's cool just for coolness sake. And one never knows when a cool hack will be something you would use (if not today, maybe tomorrow...)

Seeds?

[adolfojp]

I wonder if this could be a cheap way to gather random seeds...

Off I go to tie my wireless mouse to my cat!

what ever happened to hand scanners

[wcb4]

Its a shame really. Hand scanners seemed to ahve peaked in popularity before their time. I understand that they were popular because they were a lot cheaper to build that flatbeds, and as flatbeds came down in price, the hand scanners died away. Seems perfectly reasonable since the handscanner was a pretty ppor match for a desktop computer anyway. The only problem with this was that as the price of flatbeds fell, so did the price of laptops, now a lot of folks have laptops, and hand scanners would be perfect to throw in the laptop bag.... If you are in a library or somehwhere and need a quick scan, the hand scanner would have been perfect. But I have not been able to find a single color hand scanner that will run with XP, which is what I run on my laptop. If I could find one, I'd buy it in a heartbeat. The last time I needed a scan of something when I was not at home, I ended up puling out my digital camera (which I had with me for another reason, and snapping a picture. This was not the ideal situation, but it worked for what I needed. How often do you have a good digital camera with you (not the crappy one in your cell phone)

Does anyone know of a handscanner compatible with XP? I'd still like to have one.

Re:what ever happened to hand scanners

[Laplace]

Does anyone know of a handscanner compatible with XP? I'd still like to have one.

Yes. My digital camera. (seriously, I've made digital copies of pages from books, contracts and artwork with my camera).

Re:what ever happened to hand scanners

[wcb4]

Have you been able to get a picture good enough to run it through OCR? I used to do that all the time with the hand scanner, which was perfectly sized for a column of type.

Re:what ever happened to hand scanners

[modecx]

Absolutely, works fine, even with my 3.0MP P&S camera, so it dosen't require anything fancy. 10pt and up seriff fonts are no problem, though if there was very small text, it might not get that. I need to test it some more. The single most important thing is good light for good contrast, even better if the light isn't aligned very close to the len's axis. Flash tends to wash it out.

Re:what ever happened to hand scanners

[SharpFang]

Handscanners had LOTS of disadvantages compared to flatbeds. Poor resolution resulting from uneven movement speed (flatbed can go as slow as you desire. User moves the handscanner slightly faster and data gets lost.), small width - need for "stitching", poor absolute distance/shape quality (turn it a little, let it slide a bit etc), poor tollerance for uneven surfaces (try to scan a page in a thick book, the roll of the scanner falls off the book when the scanning element is still 5cm into the text) and quite a few other serious disadvantages. The guy advising you a camera is right. I have a Logitech handscanner and a cheap Canon camera, and the camera produces better images than the scanner. Not to mention it's vastly faster :) In great most cases camera suffices. Only if you need -huge- image in good resolution (I mean like 10000x10000px) the scanner makes sense, but you rarely do. And definitely not with a laptop, on a travel.
One more handy thing. You won't scan a 2mx3m train schedule hanging on the wall, no matter if you use handscanner or a flatbed. Camera is just right for that.

Re:what ever happened to hand scanners

[AeroIllini]

Speed of light: air=299702547m/s; vacuum=299792458m/s
Speed of sound: air=345 m/s; vacuum=???

I'm not sure I understand your signature.

If you are genuinely asking what the speed of sound in a vacuum is, you need a quick physics lesson. By definition, there can be no sound in a vacuum; sound needs a medium to travel in, since it is nothing more that propagating pressure waves. Light on the other hand can travel through a vacuum because of the particle-wave duality.

If you are merely pointing out that there is n

Re:what ever happened to hand scanners

[Somegeek]

the sig of AeroIllini (726211) read:

You can have it all; just not all at once.

I'm not sure I understand your signature. If taken at face value, your quote indicates that you believe that it is possible to possess everything there is, everywhere. If you genuinely believe that, you need a looong physics lesson.

If you are merely making a veiled criticism of greed and various similar themes as portrayed in movies and television shows, then it's really not very clear.

If on the third hand you were just

Re:what ever happened to hand scanners

[SharpFang]

It's just a little mean question with a built-in fallacy, tickle your brain, "ouch, it won't work". Just like these 0=1 proofs, just physics-based. The first case I thought of it was at the time of the article about the Voyager probe crossing the border where solar wind slows down below the speed of sound... speed of sound in what?!

Re:what ever happened to hand scanners

[AeroIllini]

OK, cool. Thanks for clarifying that.

Yeah, I really don't put much stock in the types of comparisons the general newsmedia uses when they talk about scientific subjects. The one that sticks out in my mind was when the shuttle Columbia exploded, and CNN was scrambling to get information in the bottom screen-scroller. They were in such a rush that all kinds of incorrect things were shown, like "shuttle was traveling at mock 25" and "shuttle was traveling 25 times the speed of light". It would have been funny

Re:what ever happened to hand scanners

[SharpFang]

The idea of sonic boom in void explained here. [slashdot.org]

Re:what ever happened to hand scanners

[StikyPad]

I don't ever remember hand scanners ever being a more cost efficient solution. I bought my first flatbed scanner in '95 for just over $100. My assumption had always been that hand scanners died out because they were unweildy half-assed solutions.

Re:what ever happened to hand scanners

[Wonko]

I don't ever remember hand scanners ever being a more cost efficient solution. I bought my first flatbed scanner in '95 for just over $100. My assumption had always been that hand scanners died out because they were unweildy half-assed solutions.

You don't remember, because 95 is too recent :). I bought my first flatbed 1-2 years after you for $60. IIRC, when I started high school (91-92?), flatbed scanners were $300 and hand scanners were $50-75 or so. Those numbers are only from memory, and are prob

Re:what ever happened to hand scanners

[wcb4]

I remember having one of the logitech ones - 24 bit color 300dpi and it was motorized so you did not have to worry about moving the things at the right speed. I bought it for $125. I also had a flatbed at work that cost $500. (this was '87or so)

That is the kind of scanner I would like to have right now, something that I can throw in the laptop case, scan a 4x6 image reasonably fast. Does not have to have the same quality as my flatbed. I could use my camera but I do not carry my camera everywhere I go, it i

handheld XP

[way2trivial]

Docupen.

doesn't need the computer until you want to dump.

extra security measure....

[3seas]

besides barcode scanning possibilities, how about an additional login security measure....scan your thumb print plus password.

how about a python version...

[3seas]

... and a hack that adds in teh pass thru inside the mouse?

I know ghetto gets thrown around a lot......

[i_want_you_to_throw_]

but I live in the ghetto you insensitive clod!!!!!

Re:I know ghetto gets thrown around a lot......

[blincoln]

but I live in the ghetto you insensitive clod!!!!!

Liar. If you really did, you'd be capping his ass instead of posting a rebuttal. Although, come to think of it, that would make for a pretty awesome version of Slashdot. "Slashback: North-North Soldier writes to tell us that CNN has photos of the carnage that arose when i_want_you_to_throw threw down on John H. Doe earlier this week..."

Optical Mouse Chips

[Stigmata669]

You can use the chips for optical navigation too. I played around with one for an introductory robotics class, here [cmu.edu].

Idea: Cute! Hack: ~

[baadger]

1. Notice optical mice have a iddy biddy CCD
2. Grab a datasheet
3. Wire it up
4. Take 1 free I/O parallel port library [logix4u.net] under "no explicit licence" for non-commercial use.
5. Write ~180 lines of Visual Basic
6. Start selling optical mice scanners to Digg'ers? (after getting "explicit commercial licence" for I/O library.)
7. Profit!

Nice idea for a hack, but let's see you do something with like read a barcode or OCR a sentence :P

Shocking

[SilverspurG]

I am appalled at the use of the term ghetto. Go ahead. Blame the victim.

Hook up a different lens to your mouse...

[Shanep]

and you could have a black and white camera with 0.000324 mega pixels!

Same hack works with your monitor

[ibirman]

A similar hack actually works with your monitor to take a picture of whatever is in front of your computer. There is a demo at this site:

http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/Acres/3072/came ra2.html [geocities.com]

ghetto b&w handscanner

[rodney dill]

Of course it only understands ebonics

Mindstorms anyone?

[serutan]

This is a million times cooler than the guy who claimed to have played sound from a scanned images of a phonograph record. I wonder how good an image you could get with a Mindstorms machine to move the mouse back and forth? [don't look at me, I have enough unfinished projects]

Re:ya..Verry impressive and all...

[Musteval]

The program is written in Visual Basic. So no.

Re:ya..Verry impressive and all...

[Helios1182]

It was a quick and dirty hack. He even said he doesn't like VB, but for a simple GUI it is easy. The source is available so you are welcome to port it to whatever language/plaatform you like.

Re:ya..Verry impressive and all...

[WindBourne]

Or simply move to Gambas [kde-apps.org]

Re:ya..Verry impressive and all...

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

Which is something that is unfortunately missing from Linux...a simple RAD environment which makes GUI development completely trivial for quick-and-dirty tasks.

Uuh... Tcl/tk? Python?

Re:ya..Verry impressive and all...

[DrSkwid]

see :

http://wxpython.org/ [wxpython.org]

it's even cross platform

Re:ya..Verry impressive and all...

[DrSkwid]

is this enough bindings ?

for actual links see
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WxWidgets [wikipedia.org]

        * [1] binding wxBasic for the BASIC programming language
        * [2] binding wxPerl for the Perl programming language
        * [3] binding wxPython for the Python programming language
        * [4] binding wxRuby for the Ruby programming language in September 2004 "early beta"
        * [5] binding wxSqueak for the Smalltalk programming language
        * wxLua for Lua; a Sourceforge.net project is also available here
        * wx4j for Java
        * wxJS for JavaScript
        * wxHaskell for Haskell
        * wxEiffel for the Eiffel programming language
        * wx.NET for C#/.NET
        * wxCL (formerly wxLisp) for Common Lisp

Re:ya..Verry impressive and all...

[DrSkwid]

and c++, of course

Re:Repost from hack-a-day

[Linker3000]

Yes, via the digg.com front page, it would appear.

Re:OUTGOING

[Max Threshold]

I think they are one-time-pad messages from terruhists.

Or designed to look that way.

Re:How hard, and what strategy to coordinate

[d474]

"the little pieces of each "saccade" of the mouse ... after all that is what the human brain does ... it pieces all our shaky random movements together into a steady picture of the world ... any ideas?"

Feel free to start a "hack" replicating the visual system of human brain. It's very, VERY complex at a multitude of layers. Good luck! DARPA I'm sure would be very interested if you pulled it off.

Re:But...

[jZnat]

Something tells me that it'd be easier to do this on linux considering you can just cat /dev/input/mice stream to get the mouse data.