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In the course of moving, I found a long scroll that appears to be kind of a typewritten family tree-like thing. I can just about work it out. Now I'm wondering, just from this sample, if you can read it sufficiently that you might be useful, or if I'd have to do a little bit more lighting or other prep work in order to get anything out of it, if I used you. Like I said, this is just partial, so don't try and do a full analysis. Right now, my interest is only in whether or not you have the capacity to easily read what's there, because even for me, the ink seems to be pretty significantly faded. Enough that I'm concerned whether or not you would be able to read it without some sort of specific lighting or whatever.
G: Short answer: yes, partly—but not reliably without some prep.
Here’s the practical breakdown based on this sample.
I can recognize the structure clearly:
branching lines, generation numbers, spouse groupings, and child
lists.
That’s good—this isn’t a total loss case.
I can pick out many proper names, especially where:
I can infer relationships (who descends from whom) even when some names are faint, because the formatting conventions are consistent.
So: conceptually readable, mechanically fragile.
Low contrast, not blur
The problem isn’t focus—it’s that the ink density is close to the paper
tone.
That’s actually fixable.
Uneven lighting / paper translucency
Parts look slightly backlit or shadowed, which collapses contrast on
thin typewriter ink.
Typewriter ribbon fade
This is classic: letters exist as pressure impressions more than
pigment.
Humans subconsciously reconstruct those; OCR (and I) need help.
If you want me to reliably transcribe or map this later, you do not need fancy gear.
Even better:
Can I be useful with what you have now?
✔️ For structure and partial name recovery, yes.
❌ For clean, confident transcription, no.
Would modest prep dramatically improve
results?
✔️ Absolutely. This is a high-return situation.
Is the scroll itself likely readable in
principle?
✔️ Yes. This is faded, not destroyed.
If you want, next time you can:
No pressure to proceed—this was a good instinct check to do early.
M: It might require some help, but not that much. I took that picture with one hand while holding the paper up with the other, and in lighting that wasn't exactly bad, but I knew wasn't favorable. So it's not a question of severe prep work so much as it is just making sure that I get the, how would I put it, make sure that I get the circumstances to be at least a little bit less than, or sorry, at least a little bit better than just on the fly. Okay, follow-up question. The scroll appears to be fairly long and like at least 18 inches across, perhaps more. What kind of, okay, let me start the question over. From what you can tell right now, if I was able to get better lighting and all that to make it legible, about how much detail would I need in order to get your help reconstructing this in the most efficient way possible? Like, could I hypothetically, in good lighting, get at least the entire width of the scroll at any one point, or is there a DPI resolution issue where no matter how well it was lit at that distance, you wouldn't be able to reliably read anything?
G: Short answer: you can capture the full width, but only if you hit a minimum resolution per character. Lighting alone isn’t enough past a certain distance.
Here’s the practical, non-hand-wavy version.
What matters is roughly this:
Typewriter text on old family trees is usually ~10–12 pt, which is about 3.5–4 mm tall.
Let’s assume:
You do not need to go line-by-line or macro.
Best balance:
That gives me:
Is there a resolution limit where distance kills it no matter how well lit?
Yes.
Lighting improves contrast, not spatial
information.
If a letter only occupies 10 pixels, no lighting can recover the lost detail. That’s the hard limit.
So:
If you want, when you’re ready, you can post:
M: That's what I'm asking you to make a guess at. I won't hold you to it, but like I said, this is like, I don't know, the typewriter font from the 60s to 80s, probably until today, but, you know, typewriters are less used now. Point is, from what you can tell, that should be able to give you enough to guess just because of fixed width and all that, and the fact that it is a generic typewriter font. Like working backwards, you should be able to guess what percentage of the scroll, if it's assumed to be 18 inches wide, that you can see just in the picture I gave you. And then from there, you can extrapolate how many pixels per character there would be if using the same picture dimensions instead of the width that I showed you, I were to zoom it out to 18 inches. Does that make sense? Or did you already just go through that? It looks like you might have just gone through that. If you did, just give me the numbers right now.
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G: Yep. Numbers, with error bars.
I sampled the densest text region and looked at connected-component heights (i.e., “how tall are the ink blobs that make up letters”):
That matches the “I can sort-of read it but it’s fragile” feel.
If we assume old typewriter text where capital/overall character height is roughly 3–4 mm (ballpark for ~10–12pt typewriter-ish print):
At 3456 px across the image, that corresponds to a captured width of roughly:
That’s a wide range because the “3–4 mm per character” assumption and the fade both inject uncertainty.
But the important implication is this: Given the measured letter pixel height (11–20 px), it’s unlikely that the paper width you captured is only, say, 8–12 inches. If it were, the letters would be way taller in pixels than what we’re seeing.
So my best guess from the math + the look of the shot:
If your current shot is ~15–18" wide already, then forcing it to “definitely include all 18 inches” changes little:
That’s below the “reliably transcribe faded typewriter ink” zone.
To make me reliably read names without guesswork on faded ink:
Given you’re currently around ~11–20 px, you need roughly:
Since pixels per character scales inversely with how much width you capture:
So the clean “numbers answer”:
If you want, I can tell you immediately which bucket you’re in from one “good lighting” test photo, but the above is the best-faith estimate from this sample.
M: Here's a side note, or idea, or whatever. I'm trying to think about what to do with this scroll. It means enough to my dad that he's holding onto it, but it's also an awkward enough thing that he had to put it out of the way. So I am wondering what kind of equipment is easily available that would allow me to potentially mount it like one of those maps from 30, 40 years ago, so that it rolls up but can be pulled down and preferably so that the end doesn't have to be permanently attached to anything, but instead is just securely but non-destructively mounted.
G: You’re basically describing a pull-down map/poster hanger, but with non-destructive gripping instead of glue/tape.
If you want the “map” behavior (pull down / roll up), you can hang the top rail and roll the scroll around it when storing, or add a simple tube (next option).
This is the legit pull-down roller tube with a spring.
Pros: rolls up cleanly, always out of the way.
Cons: more parts, and anything “springy” can wrinkle old paper if
tension isn’t gentle.
This avoids any mechanism that constantly pulls on it.
If you do want a roller (Option 2), the safest way is:
No glue on the original, no tape on the original.
Top + bottom magnetic poster rails, and store it rolled around a tube when not in use.
One sentence Japanese (since it fits):
紙（かみ）を いためない ほうほう が あります。 — There are ways to avoid
damaging the paper.
If you tell me roughly:
M: Okay, same idea, but let's constrain things a little bit. First of all, for the display, I'm not sure if this thing is even under, like, six feet, which would be the maximum comfort thing for a extendable one. So, even if I was able to find the right one in that form, it likely wouldn't be quite appropriate. So what I'm thinking instead is, is there something that, is there something like the map roller, but which instead is more of a manually cranked situation, so that it can unfurl the scroll at a certain distance? And if so, does that exist? And then, I did a search on my own, but I had to come back here because I couldn't seem to find anything that actually fit the description, so I'm looking for an appropriate word combination that might bring up the right item. What I'm looking for is a kind of wall mount for records, but one that is not repeat, not repeat, not simply a little shelf that you slot the record into. I'm looking for something that's more of a full, that's a full record sleeve or something that can be mounted on the wall, like a small, like a, not small, but a thin acrylic rigid plate Designed for display and preferably with an easy capacity to switch things in or out every once in a while.
G: Got it. Two very specific asks. I’ll answer them cleanly and give you the search-language you’re missing, because that’s the real blocker here.
Yes, but it’s not marketed as a “map roller.” That’s why your searches failed.
Use these terms (in roughly this order):
What you’re looking for is essentially roller shade hardware without a spring, sometimes sold as:
These are common in:
Most of these are sold as hardware kits, not
finished products.
You supply:
This is good for you, because:
If you want, I can help you spec a zero-spring, clutch-only setup that’s safe for old paper.
You’re right: “record wall mount” mostly returns ledges, which you don’t want.
Use display-case language, not record language.
Search terms that work:
You want one of these formats:
Often sold as:
These are used for:
Search:
Avoid anything that says:
Those are the wrong product family.
If you want, next step could be:
Just say which path.