document scanning in PhoneGap / Cordova apps

Question

Does anyone know of any solutions for document scanning in Cordova apps on Android devices ?

For our PhoneGap app we are looking for a plugin that can do:

• edge detection when taking a picture of paper documents (preferably with visual feedback)
• automatic cropping and perspective correction of the document after taking the picture.

Alternatively is there an Android app or library we could integrate with ? So far I found the following options:

• Anyline Document Scanner : https://www.anyline.io/document-scanner/ (most promising so far)
• CamScanner API : https://dev.camscanner.com/?language=en-us (does what I'm looking for, but no visual feedback of edge detection)
• OpenCV : opencv.org (involves a lot more developing effort)

Any help is appreciated...

Answer 1

Meanwhile we also provide a Cordova plugin for Scanbot SDK (iOS & Android).

• Docs for Cordova
• Plugin as npm package
• Example App (plain Cordova)
• Example App (Ionic 1)
• Example App (Ionic 2+)

The JavaScript SDK is not supported and offered anymore.

Answer 2

I know this is old, but for any future users, you can try this :-

https://github.com/NeutrinosPlatform/cordova-plugin-document-scanner

It does edge detection and cropping and can accept input from gallery or camera.

It is absolutely free to use. I am also involved in the creation of this plugin because we saw there were no free solutions for this problem out there. I hope it helps people.

Have a nice day!

Answer 3

Scanbot has a Javascript SDK which can do edge detection, perspective transform, threshold and even OCR.

Compatibility

Realtime detection and user guidance is currently not available on iOS due to Apple not supporting the Stream API in its web view / Safari view controller. However you can use the JavaScript SDK to crop a document from a still image with your Cordova / PhoneGap applications.

Pricing

We are offering the SDK with a yearly flat license model, meaning we don’t take any volume based variables into account (e.g. number of scans). Please contact us if you have questions or require an extended trial license.

There are no code examples but there is a demo that shows it working on a browser with just the integrated camera. After getting in touch with them the response I received is that they are not supporting the US and Canada market yet focussing mainly on Europe and Asia. You can email them at sdk@scanbot.io.