xcam acts as a stand-alone program that saves acquired images in a suitable PNM format (PBM for black-and-white images, PGM for grayscale images, and PPM for color images).

xcam accesses image acquisition devices through the SANE (Scanner Access Now Easy) interface. The list of available devices depends on installed hardware and configuration.

xcam presents a menu listing of all known and available devices.

If the --Buffer (-B) option is given, xcam will use a 1024 kByte input buffer instead of the default 32 kByte.

If the --version (-V) option is given, xcam will output its version number.

The --help (-h) xcam flag prints a short summary of options.

SANE_DEBUG_XCAM

This environment variable controls the debug level xscanimage. Higher debug levels increase the verbosity of the output.

Value Descsription 0 print fatal errors 1 print errors 2 print warnings 3 print information messages 4 print everything

Example: SANE_DEBUG_XCAM=3

$HOME/.sane/xcam/devicename.rc

For each device, there is one rc-file that holds the saved settings for that particular device. Normally, this file should not be manipulated directly. Instead, the user should use the xcam interface to select appropriate values and then save the device settings using the "Preferences->Save as default settings" menubar entry.

Gerard Klaver (2005 update)