Posted on 06/10/2024 4:23:49 PM PDT by ProtectOurFreedom
I've got some mild macular degeneration (early 70s) that is making it hard to read. I've got a "pucker" on my right retina that causes some mild distortion which makes it hard to read. The images from the left and right eye don't line up perfectly anymore. My retina specialist doctor says he can operate on the retina to improve the problem, but he can't say for certain what the outcome would be. There's always a risk of any surgery and in this case it could be losing the affected eye. Also, recurrence of the problem in a few years is fairly common (as happened to a friend of ours). So I'm just having the doc monitor the problem. It's been stable a few years now.
I find I can read pretty well either by closing one eye (a nuisance) or, using both eye, enlarge the font on the computer screen.
My daughter and boyfriend just gave me a Father's Day present of a historical railroading book ("Bonanza Railroads") about short lines in California. The book has not been digitized into the Google Books library.
So I began wondering if there might be technology aids that would assist with reading print books. I found a number of scanners comprising cameras and software that feed the image to the computer. They seem to be mainly aimed at libraries to digitize books, photos and other documents, but they could be useful for personal use.
A company named "CZUR" seems to be a leader in such scanners. Their "CZUR ET24 Pro Professional Book Scanner" with a 24MP Document Camera and Third Generation Auto-Flatten & Deskew Software has had excellent reviews. The software compensates for the curvature you get when you open a book and try to lay it flat.
I'm looking for a scanner than can directly display the live image on my computer, not saving the images to files. But maybe making my own e-book from the scanned images might be a good way to go.
QUESTION: Does anybody have experience with such scanners or know of a friend or relative using them? What do people think of these scanners?
This will not help you any, but one of my favorite movies, Three Days of the Condor, had a scanner that would turn the pages. That was in 1975. It was in the first five minutes of the movie.
I have had a tiny pucker in my right eye for about 25 years. It makes the tops of telephone poles look like Ss, among other things. I had no idea that was an indicator of macular degeneration. I had mentioned it to my eye doctor in the past but he did not seem concerned. I have an appointment with him next week. I am going to bring it up again.
Just use an eyepatch, matey.
My vision was clear enough, but just felt “off” for a long time, maybe 10 years or more. I kept complaining to my ophthalmologist and he finally referred me to the retina specialist. He did a lot of retina scans that found the pucker and explained what was going on. I hadn’t noticed the distortion until that diagnosis a couple years ago.
The surgery is scary — drain the eyeball of the vitreous humor, make a small incision, scrape a micron layer off the retinal scarring, and let the body regenerate the vitreous humor. Yikes!
My right eye presents a distorted image of straight horizontal lines. There’s a small downward dip in the middle of the line. It appears as maybe an inch droop of the horizontal line at 20 ft.
Good luck with your visit with your eye doc.
Aaarr!
Best wishes, FRiend
After cataract surgery I had a bunch of floaters in one of my eyes. The surgery my eye doctor did was to siphon out the vitreous humor and replace it with water. Over time the vitreous regenerates. It worked out OK.
Shango066 on YouTube uses such a device to convert numerous radio and TV repair volumes (from Sam’s and others).He’s demonstrated such a device in his videos; from what I can tell it works very nicely. He appears rather satisfied with its capabilities.
A long time ago (35 + years), I knew college student who was legally blind who used one of those to read her textbooks. Hers came with a transparent plate to rest on top of a page to remove the curvature. She was legally blind with a little vision on the periphery.
Most of her books were read and recorded by students, but she successfully used that device for books and class hand outs not yet recorded to audio.
She never complained about it and was glad to have it. I think she found any reading tiring as her eyes had to work so hard to get and understand an image from the periphery. But it worked. :D
CZUR ET24 Pro Portable Scanner Review Sams Photofacts TV Schematic and BK 415 Manual Test Scan
If the physical act of reading with your eyes is unimportant to you and you’re fine with hearing, think of buying ebooks and an app that reads them out loud. That way, you can “read” while performing your daily chores. If you want to avoid disturbing the people around you with audio they’re not necessarily interested in, get a Bluetooth headset or one of those wireless Bluetooth earphones.
My 96 year old mom is a very talented artist and an author & avid reader. She developed AMD about 5 years ago and it was devastating to lose access to these activities. My sister found an Orcam device that mounts to the side of your glasses (about the size of a jump drive). You point to the text you want to read, it scans the text & converts it to audio. Mom loves that it restores her access to books & letters that people write to her. It’s not cheap but it’s worth checking out.
I am legally blind due to non-age related macular degeneration so central vision is pretty well gone. However, with magnification, I can still read.
I have found that Kindle books work well.
I also have a couple closed circuit tv magnifies that look similar to your scanner. You can place a document or book beneath it and magnify it as much as you like and change the color scheme to suit your needs. The one most used is a desk top with a 24” screen. I found many to choose from on ebay.
Hang in there.
Yes, Amazon has been very good to us on returns. I thought about what you suggested, too. Thanks.
I just replayed his review and his very first words were "Hello. This is a sponsored review of the CZUR ET-24." So he was ethical there.
I learned you can use the SCSI output to do live images which may be why I want if I don't want to create an eBook.
Thanks. I’m glad your mom found a good solution. I’m not quite to that point yet, but probably in the future. Both my grandma and uncle (her son) went blind from glaucoma in their early to mid 90s and were completely blind by their late 90s! My dad had glaucoma, but he passed in his mid 70s. All three used drops to control the eye pressure, but, in the end, it got to Oma and Uncle.
Of all things, I don’t have high eye pressures! Knock on wood.
Thanks. I’m 73 and I figure this is going to continue to get worse. Right now it is stable. Fingers crossed.
I suggest wait on the surgery and hope that better treatments and less invasive surgeries come in the future.
I went to school with someone (late 1970’s) who wanted to get cut and stitch eye surgery so he could pass the commercial pilots exam.
This was before laser eye surgery came in.
I don’t know what happened, but I would not have had that scalpel eye surgery no matter who was doing it.
“I would not have had that scalpel eye surgery no matter who was doing it.”
That’s where I am, too. The doc said he can scrape a couple of microns (that’s one-thousandth of a millimeter!) off my retina. That alone worried me as does the incision. No thanks for now.
Doc even said I was making the right decision as long as it is in the “nuisance” stage now.
Also, since I’m genetically inclined for AMD I take Preservision , a supplement that is supposed to hold off any progression of AMD. Give that consideration as well.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.