Digimarc and the TWAIN Working Group have today announced a developer pre-release version of the TWAIN interface, which will enable Mac OS X applications to support TWAIN-complaint scanners and digital cameras.
TWAIN establishes a standard for the exchange of data between imaging devices like scanners and digital cameras, and image editing applications. The TWAIN Data Source Manager (DSM) essentially acts like a translator between the input device and the imaging software.
Digimarc and the TWAIN Working Group have been collaborating for the past year to develop the TWAIN DSM for Mac OS X. The DSM itself is cross-platform, supporting Mac OS X through Carbon APIs. It’s fully compatible with previous TWAIN specs, according to the developers, and provides the same functionality as the TWAIN DSM that ships with Windows PCs.
The pre-release version of the TWAIN application programming interface (API) is ready for download from the TWAIN Working Group’s Web site.
Please bear in mind that this release is designed to provide the manufacturers of various scanners and developers of software applications with the raw tools they’ll need to develop Mac OS X TWAIN support for their products — it is not, in itself, a finished driver or plug-in for any one scanner or imaging application.