OCRopus 0.4

Our OCR engine, OCRopus, is working its way towards a 0.4 release. To that end I've spent a day trying to compile the new code on Mac. As far as I can see I'm the first to attempt it, and it's taught me a lot about Unix programming!

It now builds, and works for some of our test files. First impressions are that accuracy is better where it works, so I'll be working hard to integrate the engine with VelOCRaptor over the next week.

New Screencast

I've just recorded a new screencast showing the normal interface, and updated our screenshots on the home page.

Window sizing

Now that we're into the GUI polishing stage, I've added code to resize windows to match the size of the document that they are reading. Let me know if you like it, or if it's just annoying.

Auto-update

It's been a very long day, but VelOCRaptor now has auto-update, thanks to the excellent Sparkle framework.

Thick and fast

No, not my mountain bike style, but our builds.

The latest build (155) fixes the app on Mac OS X 10.5.7 It also has a revamped GUI, so that the preview while we are reading matches the PDF display when we are done. I expect this to have problems, as I'm learning my way around this stuff, but architecturally it's close to where I want it to be, so look for more GUI tarting in the next few days.

10.5.7

Pity the poor Mac developer. The recent upgrade to 10.5.7 broke our reading of our own sample file! Apple updated Ruby, and in particular its XML parser, which seems to have caused some issue. I'm looking into it, and should have a new version out today.

New release

I've just uploaded a new release. To be honest its visually a bit worse than the last, but it does rationalise our handling of files dropped on the closed application with those opened with the File menu. The windows and documents we display are now the same in both cases, which means that we can reuse the code and introduce fewer bugs. Please bear with me while I tidy up the visuals and the workflow, and let me know what you think of the new windows.

What's the latest?

Whilst this blog may have been quiet, it's because things are very busy here in VelOCRaptor towers.

I've been working on creating a lot of tests for the app. They have revealed some bugs that we have fixed, and have let me rework our internals so that the mini-mode (drop on the closed app, it converts then exits) and standard mode (open the app, use file open or the big drop target) are now using the same code.

The tests have also allowed me to experiment with replacing our OCR engine (OCROpus) with another commercial engine. I can't say much more yet, but if negotiations are fruitful we should be able to release a product with world-beating usability, and class-leading accuracy. What's not to like?

Bug fix release

I've just uploaded build 150. This fixes crashes when closing windows, and an error with some images.