A simple MTG card scanner and catalog searcher

Scanner

Setup

• Change into the scanner directory and install the requirements: pip install -r requirements.txt.
• Download AllSets.json from mtgjson.com to data/AllSets.json.
• Run python download.py to download lo-res images from gatherer.wizards.com. This takes ~20-30min.
• Plug-in a commodity USB webcam and set it up so that it's pointing down.
• Calibrate the scanner in detect.py.
• Run python scanner.py search to start the search server. The search server runs separately so you only need to load the image hashes once.
• Run python scanner.py to start the scanner.
• Press s or spacebar when a card is in view and highlighted with a red border. This saves the card's multiverse id to a text file (data/collection.db).

The lookup.py script also lets you specify a card list and get their multiverse ids:

python lookup.py cardlist

Where cardlist is a file with contents in the format:

Card Name [quantity]

The quantity part is optional if it's just one card.

Caveats

• The scanner is very sensitive to light conditions. You will likely have to calibrate it for your environment.
• It's recommended you use a light background, e.g. a piece of printer paper. The downside is that white-bordered cards will be tricky to scan.
• Has some trouble with foils, but ok for the most part.
• Has trouble with cards in sleeves, but this varies depending on sleeve color (darker sleeves do better).
• Search right now is just a brute-force through all MTG cards. On my netbook this search takes ~3 sec.
• This is not guaranteed to match the set of a card, though if the card has used different art for different sets, then it's a good bet it will match the set.
• Error rate is about ~2% (25 misses on a collection of 1045 cards).

The error rate likely could be improved by increasing the HASH_SIZE in search.py. If you do that, you'll want to increase the max_distance value in main.py as well.

Catalog

Preparing Data

Update prices

Prices are fetched from the scryfall.com API. You manually run prices.py to generate data/prices.json, which fetches prices for the cards in your collection. If you want to update the prices, you must manually do so by running this script again.

Generate collection data

Run process.py to generate data/collection.json, which is what the catalog app uses.

Running

• Once you've catalogued your cards, you can run the API with python app.py.
• Then visit localhost:5000.

Search syntax

Operators:

• c:u search for cards with u in the cost
• c!g search for cards without g in the cost
• p>1 search for cards worth more than $1
• p<1 search for cards worth less than $1
• logical operators for these are ok, e.g.
  • c:u | c!g searches for cards with blue or without green
  • c:u & c!g searches for cards with blue and without green
  • if an operator is absent, it's assumed to be or
  • you can group boolean operations with parentheses

Filters:

• c for color
• t for type
• x for text
• p for price