Desktop Digitizer Makes Note Capture A Breeze

A maker built a custom desktop scanning station using a Raspberry Pi 5 and Camera Module 3 to consistently digitize handwritten notes. The 3D-printed enclosure holds the camera and lighting at a fixed position for reliable shots. Software running on a 5-inch touchscreen provides a UI, REST API, and OCR via the OpenAI Vision API, which outputs structured markdown-like text. Notes are then pushed automatically into Notion. The design is open-source and modular, allowing substitution of Tesseract for OCR or other note-taking apps instead of Notion.