Bookshelf Scanner

Work-in-progress Project — First Commit

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Overview

Bookshelf Scanner is a Flask web application that allows users to:

• Track their reading habits.
• Set personal reading preferences.
• Upload photos of their bookshelf to automatically detect books using AI.
• Receive AI-generated book recommendations based on their preferences.

This project uses OpenAI’s ChatGPT API for generating book recommendations and identifying books in uploaded images.

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Features

1. User Authentication

   • Register, login, and logout.
   • Save personal reading preferences.

2. Bookshelf Scanner

   • Upload a photo of your bookshelf.
   • AI detects books in the image and lists them.

3. AI Recommendations

   • Based on saved preferences, users can generate AI-powered book suggestions.

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Tech Stack

• Backend: Flask, SQLAlchemy, Flask-Login, Flask-WTF, Flask-Bootstrap5
• Database: SQLite (default, can be replaced with PostgreSQL or MySQL)
• AI Integration: OpenAI API (gpt-4.1-mini)
• Front-end: Bootstrap 5, HTML, CSS

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Installation

1. Clone the repository:

git clone https://github.com/your-username/Shelfscanner.git
cd Shelfscanner

2. Install dependencies (use your virtual environment):

pip install -r requirements.txt

3. Create a .env file in the project root with:

FLASK_KEY=your_secret_key
OPENAI_API_KEY=your_openai_api_key
DATABASE_URL=sqlite:///books.db

4. Run the app:

python main.py

5. Visit http://127.0.0.1:5000 in your browser.

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Usage

1. Register or log in.
2. Set your reading preferences (favorite genres and authors).
3. Upload a photo of your bookshelf to scan books.
4. Generate AI-powered book recommendations.

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Notes

• This is a work-in-progress project.
• Not all features are fully polished.
• Primarily intended to showcase Flask integration with AI APIs.

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License

This project is open-source and available under the MIT License.