CaptuRING: A do-it-yourself tool for wood sample digitization

Abstract

Standard procedures to obtain high-quality images of wood samples have become a bottleneck in the digitization of dendrochronology. Digitization is currently dominated by flatbed scanners, but the use of these devices is limited by sample length and surface flatness. Although several solutions based on digital photography have been published, they lack effective digitization processes or are too expensive to be widely adopted. Free open-source software and hardware has emerged as an alternative to create research tools that combine reduced costs with high reliability. Here we present CaptuRING, an open-source tool for wood sample digitization combining a do-it-yourself hardware based on Arduino® with a DSLR camera and a free open-source software with an easy-to-use graphical user interface. We compared CaptuRing with image acquisition from a standard flatbed scanner Epson® V750PRO. CaptuRING outperforms scanner image resolution and sharpness, while it removes sample size limitations. Moreover, CaptuRing performs this task in less than half of the time needed by Epson® V750PRO flatbed scanner. CaptuRING emerges as a reliable and low-cost tool to capture high-resolution images of wood samples boosting current digitization processes. The combination of free open software and hardware empowers dendrochronology to advance in wood sample digitization.