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• A Comprehensive Guide to Robust Digital Marketing Analytics

  30 octobre 2023, par Erin

  First impressions are everything. This is not only true for dating and job interviews but also for your digital marketing strategy. Like a poorly planned resume getting tossed in the “no thank you” pile, 38% of visitors to your website will stop engaging with your content if they find the layout unpleasant. Thankfully, digital marketers can access data that can be harnessed to optimise websites and turn those “no thank you’s” into “absolutely’s.”

  So, how can we transform raw data into valuable insights that pay off ? The key is web analytics tools that can help you make sense of it all while collecting data ethically. In this article, we’ll equip you with ways to take your digital marketing strategy to the next level with the power of web analytics.

  What are the different types of digital marketing analytics ?

  Digital marketing analytics are like a cipher into the complex behaviour of your buyers. Digital marketing analytics help collect, analyse and interpret data from any touchpoint you interact with your buyers online. Whether you’re trying to gauge the effectiveness of a new email marketing campaign or improve your mobile app layout, there’s a way for you to make use of the insights you gain. 

  As we go through the eight commonly known types of digital marketing analytics, please note we’ll primarily focus on what falls under the umbrella of web analytics. 

  1. Web analytics help you better understand how users interact with your website. Good web analytics tools will help you understand user behaviour while securely handling user data. 
  2. Learn more about the effectiveness of your organisation’s social media platforms with social media analytics. Social media analytics include user engagement, post reach and audience demographics. 
  3. Email marketing analytics help you see how email campaigns are being engaged with.
  4. Search engine optimisation (SEO) analytics help you understand your website’s visibility in search engine results pages (SERPs). 
  5. Pay-per-click (PPC) analytics measure the performance of paid advertising campaigns.
  6. Content marketing analytics focus on how your content is performing with your audience. 
  7. Customer analytics helps organisations identify and examine buyer behaviour to retain the biggest spenders. 
  8. Mobile app analytics track user interactions within mobile applications. 

  Choosing which digital marketing analytics tools are the best fit for your organisation is not an easy task. When making these decisions, it’s critical to remember the ethical implications of data collection. Although data insights can be invaluable to your organisation, they won’t be of much use if you lose the trust of your users. 

  Tips and best practices for developing robust digital marketing analytics 

  So, what separates top-notch, robust digital marketing analytics from the rest ? We’ve already touched on it, but a big part involves respecting user privacy and ethically handling data. Data security should be on your list of priorities, alongside conversion rate optimisation when developing a digital marketing strategy. In this section, we will examine best practices for using digital marketing analytics while retaining user trust.

  

  Clear objectives

  Before comparing digital marketing analytics tools, you should define clear and measurable goals. Try asking yourself what you need your digital marketing analytics strategy to accomplish. Do you want to improve conversion rates while remaining data compliant ? Maybe you’ve noticed users are not engaging with your platform and want to fix that. Save yourself time and energy by focusing on the most relevant pain points and areas of improvement.

  Choose the right tools for the job

  Don’t just base your decision on what other people tell you. Take the tool for a test drive — free trials allow you to test features and user interfaces and learn more about the platform before committing. When choosing digital marketing analytics tools, look for ones that ensure compliance with privacy laws like GDPR.

  Don’t overlook data compliance

  GDPR ensures organisations prioritise data protection and privacy. You could be fined up to €20 million, or 4% of the previous year’s revenue for violations. Without data compliance practices, you can say goodbye to the time and money spent on digital marketing strategies. 

  Don’t sacrifice data quality and accuracy

  Inaccurate and low-quality data can taint your analysis, making it hard to glean valuable insights from your digital marketing analytics efforts. Regularly audit and clean your data to remove inaccuracies and inconsistencies. Address data discrepancies promptly to maintain the integrity of your analytics. Data validation measures also help to filter out inaccurate data.

  Communicate your findings

  Having insights is one thing ; effectively communicating complex data findings is just as important. Customise dashboards to display key metrics aligned with your objectives. Make sure to automate reports, allowing stakeholders to stay updated without manual intervention. 

  Understand the user journey

  To optimise your conversion rates, you need to understand the user journey. Start by analysing visitors interactions with your website — this will help you identify conversion bottlenecks in your sales or lead generation processes. Implement A/B testing for landing page optimisation, refining elements like call-to-action buttons or copy, and leverage Form Analytics to make informed, data-driven improvements to your forms.

  Continuous improvement

  Learn from the data insights you gain, and iterate your marketing strategies based on the findings. Stay updated with evolving web analytics trends and technologies to leverage new growth opportunities.

  Why you need web analytics to support your digital marketing analytics toolbox

  You wouldn’t set out on a roadtrip without a map, right ? Digital marketing analytics without insights into how users interact with your website are just as useless. Used ethically, web analytics tools can be an invaluable addition to your digital marketing analytics toolbox. 

  The data collected via web analytics reveals user interactions with your website. These could include anything from how long visitors stay on your page to their actions while browsing your website. Web analytics tools help you gather and understand this data so you can better understand buyer preferences. It’s like a domino effect : the more you understand your buyers and user behaviour, the better you can assess the effectiveness of your digital content and campaigns. 

  Web analytics reveal user behaviour, highlighting navigation patterns and drop-off points. Understanding these patterns helps you refine website layout and content, improving engagement and conversions for a seamless user experience.

  

  Concrete CMS harnessed the power of web analytics, specifically Form Analytics, to uncover a crucial insight within their user onboarding process. Their data revealed a significant issue : the “address” input field was causing visitors to drop off and not complete the form, severely impacting the overall onboarding experience and conversion rate.

  Armed with these insights, Concrete CMS made targeted optimisations to the form, resulting in a substantial transformation. By addressing the specific issue identified through Form Analytics, they achieved an impressive outcome – a threefold increase in lead generation.

  This case is a great example of how web analytics can uncover customer needs and preferences and positively impact conversion rates. 

  Ethical implications of digital marketing analytics

  As we’ve touched on, digital marketing analytics are a powerful tool to help better understand online user behaviour. With great power comes great responsibility, however, and it’s a legal and ethical obligation for organisations to protect individual privacy rights. Let’s get into the benefits of practising ethical digital marketing analytics and the potential risks of not respecting user privacy : 

  • If someone uses your digital platform and then opens their email one day to find it filled with random targeted ad campaigns, they won’t be happy. Avoid losing user trust — and facing a potential lawsuit — by informing users what their data will be used for. Give them the option to consent to opt-in or opt-out of letting you use their personal information. If users are also assured you’ll safeguard personal information against unauthorised access, they’ll be more likely to trust you to handle their data securely.
  • Protecting data against breaches means investing in technology that will let you end-to-end encrypt and securely store data. Other important data-security best practices include access control, backing up data regularly and network and physical security of assets.
  • A fine line separates digital marketing analytics and misusing user data — many companies have gotten into big trouble for crossing it. (By big trouble, we mean millions of dollars in fines.) When it comes to digital marketing analytics, you should never cut corners when it comes to user privacy and data security. This balance involves understanding what data can be collected and what should be collected and respecting user boundaries and preferences.

  

  Learn more 

  We discussed a lot of facets of digital marketing analytics, namely how to develop a robust digital marketing strategy while prioritising data compliance. With Matomo, you can protect user data and respect user privacy while gaining invaluable insights into user behaviour. Save your organisation time and money by investing in a web analytics solution that gives you the best of both worlds. 

  If you’re ready to begin using ethical and robust digital marketing analytics on your website, try Matomo. Start your 21-day free trial now — no credit card required.

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• The Ultimate List of Alternatives to Google Products

  2 août 2022, par Erin — Privacy

  For many businesses, Google products can play an integral part in the productivity, function and even success of the company. This is because Google has designed their digital ecosystem to infiltrate every aspect of your work and personal life at low-to-no cost.

  On the surface, this seems like a no-brainer. Why not have a cost-effective and seamlessly connected tech stack ? It’s the complete package. 

  From Gmail to Google Analytics, it becomes hard to untangle yourself from this intricate web Google has managed to spin. But like a web, you know there’s also a catch.

  This leads us to the big question… Why stop ?

  In this blog, we’ll cover :

  Why de-Google ?

  Google products are convenient and seemingly free. However, in recent years, Google’s name has become synonymous with privacy breaches, data leaks and illegal under the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

  As their track record shows a glaring disregard for data protection, a growing list of EU member countries like Austria, France, Denmark and Italy have banned Google products, such as Google Analytics, Google Workspace and Google Chromebook.

  Google offers free products and services, but not out of altruism. There’s a trade-off. By using Google’s “free” products, your customers’ and your own online activity becomes a commodity that can be sold to advertisers.

  When the risks of using Google products are considered, it becomes clear the need to plot a pathway to de-Google your business. If you’re wondering how in the world to uncoil from this web, fortunately, there are plenty of privacy-friendly, secure alternatives to Google products that you can choose.

  Disclaimer : Below, we’ve tried our best to provide a comprehensive list of alternatives to Google products for businesses, but because you know your business best, we’d also encourage you to do your own research to ensure the tool will suit your unique needs.

  Best Google alternative tools for business

  Overall business tools

  Google Workspace alternatives

  Google Workspace isn’t GDPR compliant by default, so businesses are at risk of fines and reputational damage. More EU countries are reaching the same conclusion that Google products are violating EU law. Data Protection Authorities from Norway and Denmark have deemed Google Workspace illegal in accordance with the GDPR. 

  Nextcloud

  Nextcloud is an open-source and self-hosted productivity platform that offers a suite of services to replace the major features found in Google Workspace, such as Google Drive, Calendar, Docs, Forms and Tasks. 

  You can share files and collaborate without worrying about data being shared with unauthorised individuals or companies. As a self-hosted suite, you’re in full control of where your data is, who has access to it and can comply with the strictest of data protection legislations.

  

  Zoho

  Zoho is a Google Workspace alternative built on the same principles as Google’s productivity suite. It offers a suite of online office tools, including email, calendar and task management, but with an emphasis on privacy protection. Zoho doesn’t rely on advertising revenue to support their business which means your personal data will never be sold or used for targeted ads. 

  With over 75 million users globally, Zoho offers data encryption at rest and at transit, multi-factor authentication and complies with strict security standards set by HIPAA, the Cloud Security Alliance and the GDPR.

  

  Gmail alternatives

  Google only encrypts emails via STARTTLS. In other words, your data isn’t end-to-end encrypted and can be decrypted by them at any time. Gmail also has a history of allowing third-party app developers that work with Gmail to access private and personal Gmail messages for their own market research purposes.

  ProtonMail

  ProtonMail is a secure, open-source email service that provides end-to-end encryption, so only the sender and receiver can access the messages. Proton deliberately doesn’t possess the key needed to decrypt any part of the message, so you know your sensitive business information is always private. 

  To protect users from digital surveillance, they also provide enhanced tracking protections and don’t rely on ads, so your data isn’t mined for advertising purposes. Not only that, you can also sync ProtonMail with a host of other Google alternative products, such as Proton Calendar and Proton Drive.

  

  Mailfence

  Mailfence is a highly secure communications and planning platform that offers a complete email suite, as well as, Documents, a Calendar and Groups. It provides end-to-end encryption and comes with a built-in data loss prevention system that prevents unauthorised access to your sensitive information. 

  Mailfence is completely ad-free and promises to never commercialise its databases or share data with third parties for targeted ads.

  

  Tutanota

  Tutanota is an open-source email service known as one of the first to offer end-to-end encryption. It boasts a user-friendly interface and offers a fast, simple and secure email service that works on web and mobile platforms. Stringent security, in addition to TOTP and U2F for two-factor authentication means you control who has access to your email and messages. 

  It requires no phone number or personal information to register for a free account. In addition, Tutanota doesn’t earn money through ads, its servers are based in Europe and it is fully GDPR compliant.

  

  Google Calendar alternatives

  Calendars can contain a lot of personal information (who you are meeting, location, contact info, etc.), which is well worth keeping private. 

  Proton Calendar

  With Proton Calendar all event details – participants, locations, event names, descriptions and notes are end-to-end encrypted. It has a clean and easy-to-use interface, and you get a full set of advanced features to replace Google Calendar, such as the ability to create events and reminders, add multiple calendars and set up repeating events. You can easily sync all your calendars between mobile and desktop apps.

  

  Mailfence Calendar

  Mailfence Calendar lets you manage, schedule and track your events and meetings. Similar to Google Calendar, you can invite people to events using their Mailfence email IDs, but it doesn’t track your location or email address.

  

  Tutanota Calendar

  Tutanota Calendar offers built-in encryption, so no one else can decrypt and read your information.

  You can keep track of your appointments and meetings in a secure environment that only you have access to. You get features, such as day/week/month view, all-day events, recurring events, upcoming events view and shared calendars. You can also sync it with other apps such as Outlook.

  

  Nextcloud Calendar app

  Nextcloud also offers a Calendar app which easily syncs events from different devices with your Nextcloud account. You can integrate it with other Nextcloud apps like Contacts, Talk and Tasks.

  

  Google Drive alternatives

  The GDPR emphasises end-to-end encryption as a safeguard against data leaks, but Google Drive isn’t end-to-end encrypted, so Google has access to the data on its servers. 

  In their privacy policy, they also state that this data can be analysed for advertising purposes, so although you’re using “free” Cloud storage, users need to be aware that they’re paying for this by giving Google access to any and all data stored in Google Drive.

  Proton Drive

  Proton Drive is a secure and private Cloud storage service that provides you with an easy-to-use, customisable and secure file management system.

  It uses end-to-end encryption to secure your data and keep it safe from prying eyes. As you have full control over your data, you can decide how long it’s stored and who has access to it. You can also choose how much of your information is shared with other users.

  

  Nextcloud

  Nextcloud works on your own server, so you can access and share your data wherever you are. It’s a file hosting service that lets you store files, sync them across your devices and collaborate with others on projects. 

  It also provides encryption for all the files that you store on its servers, so you can rest assured that no one can see your information without your permission.

  

  Syncthing

  Syncthing is a free, open-source file synchronisation program that allows you to store and access your files wherever you are. It’s designed to be fast, secure and easy to use, making it a great alternative to Google Drive. 

  With Syncthing, you can sync files across multiple computers and mobile devices at once. So if you create, delete or modify files on one machine, they will automatically be replicated on other devices. Data is saved directly to a location you choose, so you can securely backup your data without needing a third-party cloud service.

  Google Docs alternatives

  Google states they can “collect information” from Google-hosted content such as Docs by means of automated scanning. 

  Not only does this stoke spying fears, it also raises concerns over who holds power over your content. If they look through your docs and decide that you’ve violated their terms of service, you can get locked out of your Google Docs – as was the case when a National Geographic crime reporter had her story “frozen” by Google.

  LibreOffice

  LibreOffice is a free, open-source office suite with all the features you need to create and edit documents, presentations and spreadsheets. It’s compatible with many different languages and all Microsoft Office file formats. 

  Unlike Google Docs, LibreOffice doesn’t store your documents on the Cloud. As it runs on your own computer, you maintain complete control and the data is kept as private and as secure as you wish. LibreOffice also has an online version that works with most web browsers and can be used on Windows, Mac and Linux operating systems. 

  The open-source nature ensures security as the code is constantly improved and scouted for vulnerabilities.

  

  Nextcloud Office

  Like Google Docs, Nextcloud Office lets you create new documents and spreadsheets and collaborate with teammates or colleagues. But unlike Google Docs, Nextcloud doesn’t collect any data on who is using its platform, or what they’re doing on it. You can even encrypt the files you store in Nextcloud, so no one else can see them unless you give them access to your account.

  

  Google Keep alternative

  Standard Notes

  Standard Notes is an open-source online notebook app that offers a variety of useful features, such as tasks, to-dos and spreadsheets. 

  Unlike Google Keep, which has access to your notes, Standard Notes is end-to-end encrypted, which protects all your information and keeps it securely synced across all your devices. Standard Notes supports text, images and audio notes. As open-source software, they value transparency and trust and don’t rely on tracking or intrusive ads.

  

  Google Chrome alternatives

  Google Chrome is notorious for stalking users and collecting information for their own gains. Their browser fuels their data gathering infrastructure by being able to collect info about your search history, location, personal data and product interaction data for “personalisation” purposes – essentially to build a profile of you to sell to advertisers.

  Firefox

  Firefox is one of the most secure browsers for privacy and is trusted by 220 million users. It easily compares with Chrome in terms of ease of use and performance. 

  On top of that it offers enhanced privacy protections, so you get a browser that doesn’t stalk you and isn’t riddled with ads.

  

• Developing MobyCAIRO

  26 mai 2021, par Multimedia Mike — General

  I recently published a tool called MobyCAIRO. The ‘CAIRO’ part stands for Computer-Assisted Image ROtation, while the ‘Moby’ prefix refers to its role in helping process artifact image scans to submit to the MobyGames database. The tool is meant to provide an accelerated workflow for rotating and cropping image scans. It works on both Windows and Linux. Hopefully, it can solve similar workflow problems for other people.

  As of this writing, MobyCAIRO has not been tested on Mac OS X yet– I expect some issues there that should be easily solvable if someone cares to test it.

  The rest of this post describes my motivations and how I arrived at the solution.

  Background
  I have scanned well in excess of 2100 images for MobyGames and other purposes in the past 16 years or so. The workflow looks like this :

  
  

  

  Image workflow

  
  

  It should be noted that my original workflow featured me manually rotating the artifact on the scanner bed in order to ensure straightness, because I guess I thought that rotate functions in image editing programs constituted dark, unholy magic or something. So my workflow used to be even more arduous :

  
  

  

  I can’t believe I had the patience to do this for hundreds of scans

  
  

  Sometime last year, I was sitting down to perform some more scanning and found myself dreading the oncoming tedium of straightening and cropping the images. This prompted a pivotal question :

  
  Why can’t a computer do this for me ?
  

  After all, I have always been a huge proponent of making computers handle the most tedious, repetitive, mind-numbing, and error-prone tasks. So I did some web searching to find if there were any solutions that dealt with this. I also consulted with some like-minded folks who have to cope with the same tedious workflow.

  I came up empty-handed. So I endeavored to develop my own solution.

  Problem Statement and Prior Work
  
  I want to develop a workflow that can automatically rotate an image so that it is straight, and also find the most likely crop rectangle, uniformly whitening the area outside of the crop area (in the case of circles).

  As mentioned, I checked to see if any other programs can handle this, starting with my usual workhorse, Photoshop Elements. But I can’t expect the trimmed down version to do everything. I tried to find out if its big brother could handle the task, but couldn’t find a definitive answer on that. Nor could I find any other tools that seem to take an interest in optimizing this particular workflow.

  When I brought this up to some peers, I received some suggestions, including an idea that the venerable GIMP had a feature like this, but I could not find any evidence. Further, I would get responses of “Program XYZ can do image rotation and cropping.” I had to tamp down on the snark to avoid saying “Wow ! An image editor that can perform rotation AND cropping ? What a game-changer !” Rotation and cropping features are table stakes for any halfway competent image editor for the last 25 or so years at least. I am hoping to find or create a program which can lend a bit of programmatic assistance to the task.

  Why can’t other programs handle this ? The answer seems fairly obvious : Image editing tools are general tools and I want a highly customized workflow. It’s not reasonable to expect a turnkey solution to do this.

  Brainstorming An Approach
  I started with the happiest of happy cases— A disc that needed archiving (a marketing/press assets CD-ROM from a video game company, contents described here) which appeared to have some pretty clear straight lines :

  
  
  

  My idea was to try to find straight lines in the image and then rotate the image so that the image is parallel to the horizontal based on the longest single straight line detected.

  I just needed to figure out how to find a straight line inside of an image. Fortunately, I quickly learned that this is very much a solved problem thanks to something called the Hough transform. As a bonus, I read that this is also the tool I would want to use for finding circles, when I got to that part. The nice thing about knowing the formal algorithm to use is being able to find efficient, optimized libraries which already implement it.

  Early Prototype
  A little searching for how to perform a Hough transform in Python led me first to scikit. I was able to rapidly produce a prototype that did some basic image processing. However, running the Hough transform directly on the image and rotating according to the longest line segment discovered turned out not to yield expected results.

  
  
  

  It also took a very long time to chew on the 3300×3300 raw image– certainly longer than I care to wait for an accelerated workflow concept. The key, however, is that you are apparently not supposed to run the Hough transform on a raw image– you need to compute the edges first, and then attempt to determine which edges are ‘straight’. The recommended algorithm for this step is the Canny edge detector. After applying this, I get the expected rotation :

  
  
  

  The algorithm also completes in a few seconds. So this is a good early result and I was feeling pretty confident. But, again– happiest of happy cases. I should also mention at this point that I had originally envisioned a tool that I would simply run against a scanned image and it would automatically/magically make the image straight, followed by a perfect crop.

  Along came my MobyGames comrade Foxhack to disabuse me of the hope of ever developing a fully automated tool. Just try and find a usefully long straight line in this :

  
  

  Darn it, Foxhack…
  

  There are straight edges, to be sure. But my initial brainstorm of rotating according to the longest straight edge looks infeasible. Further, it’s at this point that we start brainstorming that perhaps we could match on ratings badges such as the standard ESRB badges omnipresent on U.S. video games. This gets into feature detection and complicates things.

  This Needs To Be Interactive
  At this point in the effort, I came to terms with the fact that the solution will need to have some element of interactivity. I will also need to get out of my safe Linux haven and figure out how to develop this on a Windows desktop, something I am not experienced with.

  I initially dreamed up an impressive beast of a program written in C++ that leverages Windows desktop GUI frameworks, OpenGL for display and real-time rotation, GPU acceleration for image analysis and processing tricks, and some novel input concepts. I thought GPU acceleration would be crucial since I have a fairly good GPU on my main Windows desktop and I hear that these things are pretty good at image processing.

  I created a list of prototyping tasks on a Trello board and made a decent amount of headway on prototyping all the various pieces that I would need to tie together in order to make this a reality. But it was ultimately slowgoing when you can only grab an hour or 2 here and there to try to get anything done.

  Settling On A Solution
  Recently, I was determined to get a set of old shareware discs archived. I ripped the data a year ago but I was blocked on the scanning task because I knew that would also involve tedious straightening and cropping. So I finally got all the scans done, which was reasonably quick. But I was determined to not manually post-process them.

  This was fairly recent, but I can’t quite recall how I managed to come across the OpenCV library and its Python bindings. OpenCV is an amazing library that provides a significant toolbox for performing image processing tasks. Not only that, it provides “just enough” UI primitives to be able to quickly create a basic GUI for your program, including image display via multiple windows, buttons, and keyboard/mouse input. Furthermore, OpenCV seems to be plenty fast enough to do everything I need in real time, just with (accelerated where appropriate) CPU processing.

  So I went to work porting the ideas from the simple standalone Python/scikit tool. I thought of a refinement to the straight line detector– instead of just finding the longest straight edge, it creates a histogram of 360 rotation angles, and builds a list of lines corresponding to each angle. Then it sorts the angles by cumulative line length and allows the user to iterate through this list, which will hopefully provide the most likely straightened angle up front. Further, the tool allows making fine adjustments by 1/10 of an angle via the keyboard, not the mouse. It does all this while highlighting in red the straight line segments that are parallel to the horizontal axis, per the current candidate angle.

  
  
  

  The tool draws a light-colored grid over the frame to aid the user in visually verifying the straightness of the image. Further, the program has a mode that allows the user to see the algorithm’s detected edges :

  
  
  

  For the cropping phase, the program uses the Hough circle transform in a similar manner, finding the most likely circles (if the image to be processed is supposed to be a circle) and allowing the user to cycle among them while making precise adjustments via the keyboard, again, rather than the mouse.

  
  
  

  Running the Hough circle transform is a significantly more intensive operation than the line transform. When I ran it on a full 3300×3300 image, it ran for a long time. I didn’t let it run longer than a minute before forcibly ending the program. Is this approach unworkable ? Not quite– It turns out that the transform is just as effective when shrinking the image to 400×400, and completes in under 2 seconds on my Core i5 CPU.

  For rectangular cropping, I just settled on using OpenCV’s built-in region-of-interest (ROI) facility. I tried to intelligently find the best candidate rectangle and allow fine adjustments via the keyboard, but I wasn’t having much success, so I took a path of lesser resistance.

  Packaging and Residual Weirdness
  I realized that this tool would be more useful to a broader Windows-using base of digital preservationists if they didn’t have to install Python, establish a virtual environment, and install the prerequisite dependencies. Thus, I made the effort to figure out how to wrap the entire thing up into a monolithic Windows EXE binary. It is available from the project’s Github release page (another thing I figured out for the sake of this project !).

  The binary is pretty heavy, weighing in at a bit over 50 megabytes. You might advise using compression– it IS compressed ! Before I figured out the --onefile command for pyinstaller.exe, the generated dist/ subdirectory was 150 MB. Among other things, there’s a 30 MB FORTRAN BLAS library packaged in !

  Conclusion and Future Directions
  Once I got it all working with a simple tkinter UI up front in order to select between circle and rectangle crop modes, I unleashed the tool on 60 or so scans in bulk, using the Windows forfiles command (another learning experience). I didn’t put a clock on the effort, but it felt faster. Of course, I was livid with proudness the whole time because I was using my own tool. I just wish I had thought of it sooner. But, really, with 2100+ scans under my belt, I’m just getting started– I literally have thousands more artifacts to scan for preservation.

  The tool isn’t perfect, of course. Just tonight, I threw another scan at MobyCAIRO. Just go ahead and try to find straight lines in this specimen :

  
  
  

  I eventually had to use the text left and right of center to line up against the grid with the manual keyboard adjustments. Still, I’m impressed by how these computer vision algorithms can see patterns I can’t, highlighting lines I never would have guessed at.

  I’m eager to play with OpenCV some more, particularly the video processing functions, perhaps even some GPU-accelerated versions.

  The post Developing MobyCAIRO first appeared on Breaking Eggs And Making Omelettes.