Congratulations on your purchase of a HoverCam T5V document camera! You are just moments away from having the ability to quickly scan your favorite materials with DocuScan Plus in one of the most portable ways possible. You can use this camera on the Apple Macintosh or Microsoft Windows platforms, affording you maximum flexibility in turning your printed materials into text. Now, through the power of the cloud or just by scanning locally, you can access your data when and where you need it from just about anywhere and on just about any platform.
Inside your HoverCam box you should find the following items: 1 HoverCam T5V Camera 1 Case for HoverCam T5V Camera 1 USB cord for connection of the camera to a computer 1 Document Mat 1 Program CD (not needed to operate the camera with DocuScan Plus)
Inside the box you will also find a piece of plastic that can be folded out to resemble a letter L. This piece of hardware is not supported by DocuScan Plus at this time and it can be placed back into the box for safe keeping. This piece of hardware aids in deskewing an image before that image is passed to a piece of software. Since DocuScan Plus already performs orientation on the image before it is recognized, this functionality is not needed. Once you have these items in hand, it's time to familiarize yourself with the camera's design.
The camera itself consists of four parts. There is the camera base, the camera lock switch, the neck of the camera and the arm of the camera. We will describe each portion of the camera as we go through the setup process. Remove your camera from it's case or from the original box. Please remember to store the camera in its case or in the box when traveling or when not in use. You will notice that the camera has a narrow end and a wide end. The wide end serves as the base of your camera. Place the camera's base on the Document Mat, or any other solid unmoving surface, before performing any other steps. Place the camera facing towards you by aiming the oval located on the top of the camera base in your direction. The USB connection port should face away from you while the oval should be pointed towards you.
Run your hands along the back of the camera until you feel a series of bumps. These bumps should be around two thirds the way up the neck of the camera from the unit's base. The bumps serve as a marker for finding the camera's lock switch. Place a fingernail beneath the latch, which begins at the bottom of the bumpy surface, and gently raise the latch to unlock the camera. The latch should angle upwards, from the camera base, and will only open halfway. Once you have unlocked the camera, you can now extend the camera's neck upwards. The neck of the camera is just above the top of the Camera Lock Switch. The neck will slide up and down vertically. With the Camera Lock Switch set to the unlocked position, gently raise the neck of your camera upwards. You may find that placing one hand on the camera base and another on the camera's neck will help in raising the neck upwards. The neck will raise out of the camera's base. Extend the camera's neck until you feel resistance, then place the latch in the down, or closed position to secure the camera in place. Your camera will double in height when the neck is at its highest point. When not in use, or when traveling, the neck of the camera should be slid in to the base of the camera and the lock switch should be closed.
Now that the neck of the camera is extended and locked in place, deploy the camera arm. Run your fingers along the neck of the camera as it faces you, at the point where it slides out of the base. You will find a semicircular hole. It is just above where the camera's base joins with the neck of the unit. Once you find this hole on the camera's neck, place a finger in the semicircle with your fingernail pointing downwards. The camera's arm can be pulled towards you. It will then raise upwards as you lift it from the neck of your camera. The arm will lock into place once it has been fully raised. The whole unit, with the camera arm lifted, should look like an upside down letter L . Remember that both the oval on the camera's base and the camera’s arm should be facing you.
The camera arm contains a light for those times when ambient light in your scanning environment is not sufficient. The switch for this light can be found on the end of the camera's arm. With the oval at the camera's base facing you, run your fingers along the arm until you reach the end. The switch is located at the end of the camera arm, which should be facing you. The small switch will move left to right, where the leftmost position turns the light on, and moving the switch to the right turns it off.
Now that you are familiar with the camera's design, you are ready to connect it to your computer. Whether you are using a Mac or a PC, no additional drivers are required for the camera to function. You need only plug it in to your computer for it to be recognized and ready to use with DocuScan Plus. To plug the camera in, attach the small square end of the USB cable to the USB port located on the back of the camera's base. Attach the large, rectangular end of the cable to an available USB port on your computer. On the PC, Windows should play two ascending tones indicating that a device has been plugged in. On a Macintosh, you will receive no auditory feedback, and the HoverCam will not show up in Image Capture, so you will need to simply test by attempting a scan.
The HoverCam T5V comes with a slip-resistant mat which is perfect for holding the camera and your print materials in place. The mat is rectangular in shape, and contains various markings which may serve as guides for where to place your materials for optimal accuracy. The document mat should be placed so that the HoverCam logo, which may feel like a dense group of printed lines, is in the upper lefthand corner. This means that the mat will be longer than it is wide. Now that the mat is facing correctly, we can determine the proper place for the camera. Near the top center of the mat, you will feel two raised lines which curve slightly towards each other. These lines are spaced so that the base of the camera should fit perfectly between them and the curves of the raised lines will match the curves on the oval base of the camera. When the camera is in this position, it is able to focus the largest possible area on the mat.
Now that the camera is situated properly, you may place your printed material on the mat in preparation for scanning. You will notice several lines on the mat which are shaped like corners of a page. For example, on the very bottom left of the mat, you'll find a marking which matches the bottom left corner of the page, and just across the mat on the bottom right, you will find another marking which fits the right bottom corner of a page. This set of lines can be used as a guide for placing a book with two facing pages. Now, if we begin at the bottom left of the mat and move slightly upward and to the right, we will encounter another line which appears to correspond with the bottom lefthand corner of a page. If we follow this line to the right, we will discover a similar marking. This marking is a guide for placing an 8.5 by 11-inch page for optimal accuracy. As you move closer to the center of the mat, you will find lines which are appropriate guides for smaller and smaller material to be scanned. Note that it is not necessary to use the mat while scanning, but you may find it quite useful for keeping your material stable and providing a reference for the best place for focusing on your documents.
While the DocuScan Plus help files describe the operation of the product in great detail, here we will talk about a few things which are specific to using the camera with DocuScan Plus. The tips found here are applicable to both the PC and Mac platforms.
If you are using a computer with both a scanner and camera connected, you'll have the opportunity to choose which scanning source you use for each project. You will be prompted to select your scanning source once you've chosen to scan the first page of your document. The document camera will be listed as HoverCam T5V.
Unlike a scanner, there is no feedback from the hardware of the camera when it snaps a picture. For this reason, we have included a sound in the DocuScan Plus software which indicates when a picture is being taken. This sound is a traditional camera snap sound, and should be easily recognizable.
When beginning each scanning session with the document camera, please note that the initial picture will take slightly longer to be captured than all subsequent pictures. This is because the camera takes a moment to be fully ready for scanning, once it has interfaced with the software.
If your first scan with the camera yields poor results, here are some things you can try. Turn the camera light on, in the event that you don't have enough ambient light in the room. Ensure that your material is not skewed on the mat, and that the camera base itself is not resting on any portion of your material. While the information here is sufficient to learn specifically how to operate your HoverCam T5V, we highly recommend that you also read the DocuScan Plus help files for your chosen platform in order to get the most out of your new software.
Last modified June 26, 2015
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