Here there is Snaps-o-matic 5000 to donwnload

Snaps-o-matic is a program to match the snapshots (photos) of the slides taken during a presentation, with the higher quality scanned version.

So, during the presentation, each time the speaker changes transparence, with a single click you take a snapshot of the projection and the timing. You can do that using, for example,  Clipboard2000 (doc camera feature). So at the end you get a set of jpg files and the timing file (lecture.xml).

If you want to write your own capturing tool, have a look at here.

After the presentation you scan the transparencies, and get a set of .gif files.

Using snaps-o-matic, you can substitute each snapshot (jpg) with the correspondent scanned image (gif).

To start you should have, in a directory, a file called lecture.xml containing the timing information. This file is created by the capturing tool (e.g. Clipboard) and has to be compliant to the Lecture Object architecture. The snapshots file have to be in the /slides/ directory. The scanned images can be everywhere on your filesystem.

When you start Snaps-o-matic, a "What do I have to do?" window will guide you around, suggesting what to do.

Briefly you have to tell him where the file lecture.xml is, and where the scanned images are.

Once you chose the lecture.xml directory, and the scanned images directory, you can start the matching.

For each snapshot (on the top), look for the correspondent scanned image (on the bottom). When you find it, drag and drop the scanned image over the snapshot. The information in the timing window (on the top-right) will be automatic updated.

To go to the next snapshot, click on the little snapshot on the right, under the label Next. Click on that one on the left under the label Previous to go to the previous one.

If there is a red line over a snapshot, means that the snapshot is not present in the timing file, usually because it has been already substituted. When all the snapshots have a red line, is likely ou have finished your work. :-)

To see all the scanned images, click on the up and down arrows at the center of the screen.

When you are done, don't forget to save the lecture.xml (see here below).

If you select the panel called lecture.xml you can edit the information contained in this xml file.

Don't forget to save the file clicking on the big button in the middle.

You can use this panel to edit lecture.xml files, even if you are not using snapshots at all.

If you select the panel called Audio/Video player, it appears a list of video files contained in the sub-directory /media/.

You can watch one of the videos, and you can jump to a certain point typing the seconds in the right text field. You can also go back and forward of a certain number of seconds.

If you click on the clock (at the center on the top), the selected slide in the list on the right will get the actual timing of the video. This is useful when you have the video and the slides, but no timing information, or wrong timing.

Snaps-o-matic has been invented by Giosue Vitaglione at CERN, European Laboratory for Particle Phisics, and at University of Michigan for the Web Lecture Archive Project.

Last Update GV 2001/06/13