New Card Scans

May 24, 2021

New card scan from reddit user PopTartNZ are now available on Proxy Nexus!

To support these new scans, I've rebuilt about 80% of the website to support multiple scan sources, along with other changes I wanted to make. By default, the new scans will be used and the site now implements what I'm calling "scan source priority". This setting can be changed in the new settings page. Proxy Nexus will priority the selected scan source and fall back onto others if a card scan isn't available. Why? PopTartNZ didn't scan every card (it is a lot of work after all). If a selected card is missing, Proxy Nexus will first try to find another printing of the card with the same name. For example, if you pick the Core set, Mimic isn't available. However, it's available in the Revised Core set, so that version will be used. If a card is not available in the source, then it will use the version from another source. If Proxy Nexus uses a card scan from another source, it will have a red border around it in the card preview area. This change also makes is much easier to support cards with other languages. There are a few German scans available, but if anyone would like to contribute more non-English scans, or with translating the site, please let me know!

The rebuild also includes a new Statistics page. It currently just shows the number of downloads per day, and a table of recent downloads. I may expand on this page in the future, to include things like "most downloaded card this month". Any suggestions welcome!

This rebuild also allowed me to fix a bunch of quirky behavior. For example, you can now edit the Card List text, and it'll try its best to preserve the alt art selection. Also, NISEI cards will no longer be included in MPC requests, and will simply be filtered out. On the more technical side, the server now has it's own worker process and each request is queued one at a time. I'm hoping this will help with server load.

There is also a new Settings page, where a few settings have been moved from the home page. These are saved to browser cookies.

For those who are interested, PopTartNZ and I will be adding some details on how the new scans were produced to the instructions page.

I will also be updating the github repo with instructions on how to self-host the project, to make it easier for anyone to contribute.

If you found this site useful, please consider making a donation to support this project.


System Update 2021

March 28, 2021
With the release of System Update 2021, I had to make a few small updates to handle the re-released FFG cards.
  • Art from System Gateway and System Update 2021 is available. HOWEVER, this is mostly for convenience when printing a few cards or a deck lists which contain these cards. If you want to print complete NISEI sets, please buy them from one of their print-on-demand partners. They've worked very hard to make these a reality and deserve to be compensated. AND you'll be getting better quality prints anyway. :)
  • Proxy Nexus will try to prioritize FFG art over NISEI art when using the card list method; i.e., entering card names in the "card list" tab. However NISEI art can still be selected using the Alt Arts selector.

A huge congratulations to NISEI for getting these new sets out! Excellent work! :)

Crazy, it's been over a year since my last update here. How time flies... We're also three days away from Proxy Nexus' two-year anniversary. When I started this project, I wouldn't have believed it would still be active two years later. Since NISEI can't direct people here themselves, I want to thank everyone who recommends this site.

If you'd like to support Proxy Nexus and help cover some of the hosting fees, consider making a donation to paypal.me/proxynexus.


Basic Action Cards and Click Trackers

January 16, 2020
New feature:
  • Options to include Basic Action cards or Click Tracker cards. Thanks to /u/CryOFrustration for the suggestion!

If you'd like to support Proxy Nexus and help cover some of the hosting fees, consider making a donation to paypal.me/proxynexus.


Uprising Set and German Reign and Reverie

December 21, 2019
Added the following:
  • Image files for the new Uprising set and the link to the NISEI info page. The back side image for the two new flippable IDs are also included.
  • German Reign and Reverie 2019 scans in the set tab.
  • Alt art selection for cards reprinted in Uprising.
  • Removed the 10 NISEI card limit.

A heartfelt thank you to everyone who has donated in support.

If you'd like to support Proxy Nexus and help cover some of the hosting fees, consider making a donation to paypal.me/proxynexus.


New Cards and More Improvements

September 10, 2019
New features:
  • Added the German System Core 2019 scans, however they're only accessible by choosing the set.
  • Added image files for the Uprising booster pack, the Magnum Opus Reprint and links to the new NISEI products.
  • Card preview shows the names of cards that aren't found. Submitted by nlscng on github.
  • Added an option to draw grey cut lines across the whole PDF page. Suggestion from /u/Captain_Sca.
  • Improved a handful of small visual details of the website.

If you'd like to support Proxy Nexus and help cover some of the hosting fees, consider making a donation to paypal.me/proxynexus.

Thanks!!


MPC Exports and Alt Art Selection

May 3, 2019
New features:
  • Print proxies at MPC (makeplayingcards.com). Generate a set of images ready for printing at MPC. Includes the System Backup card back images provided by Spencer Wharton. (/u/SpencerDub). I find that most decks don't contain more than 10 NISEI cards, so to prevent people from printing the entire set themselves, only 10 copies of any NISEI card will be included in MPC exports. Please support NISEI by buying a set from them instead, the card quality will far exceed what Proxy Nexus can produce anyways.
  • Alternate/Promo Art Selection. On any input method, if an alternate art version of a card exists, a selector appears allowing you to select of any of the alternatives. Certain alt art cards have different backs, (eg, the Magnum Opus cards) The images for these are also included on PDFs and in MPC exports but can be excluded if desired.
  • Instructions Page. Details on how to make paper and MPC proxies.
  • Large PDF requests are split into smaller PDFs and zipped. I know the self-serve printers at Staples have a 80mb file limit.
  • Improved UI, better options selection and status display.
Technical Details:
  • Both types of MPC images have been pre-generated by a python script I wrote. Details on the differences of scaled and fitted images are on the instructions page. I thought of having Proxy Nexus generate them on the fly, but I'm worried about memory usage on Heroku.
  • As pointed out to me by /u/robahu, when uploading images to MPC, it will consider multiple identical images as the same one, even if they have different file names. I used npm package Sharp to mark duplicate copies of the same image with a tiny 1x1 red square along the left border of the image. This boarder gets cut anyways and allows us to trick MPC into seeing the same images as a different one. Why bother? To make use of their super convenient "Help me autofill images!" button.
  • Using web sockets to pass the server's processing status and download link to the browser. Zip creation was taking more time than PDF generation, and the API calls would timeout on big requests. Also seems appropriate to send feedback while people wait.

Performance Improvements and Memory Fixes

April 25, 2019
New features:
  • Faster PDF generation using cached PDFs and image files.
  • Reduced pdf file size with no quality loss.
  • Separate Generate PDF and Download buttons.
Technical Improvements:
  • Moved from Azure to Heroku. Simply a better service.
  • Improved image fetching process. Instead of using the Azure SDK to download images into JavaScript buffers, now downloads image files using fetch.
  • Reduced pdf file size. When PDFkit adds images to a document from files instead of buffers, it appears to not increase the pdf file size when adding duplicate images.
  • Fixed Memory Leak. The removal of JavaScript buffers appears to have fixed a memory leak, which was causing the website to crash at Heroku's 1GB hard limit.

Feature Update and Facelift

April 19, 2019
New features:
  • Rebuilt website appearance using Bootstrap. The website should now work better with all browsers, including mobile.
  • PDF is now generated on server using Node.js and PDFKit instead of using Google Chrome's print menu. Choose between letter and A4 paper sizes, as well as quality of images.
  • PDF includes cut lines to make cutting prints easier.
  • Preview images on website are smaller to improve load times.
  • Blog page for announcing new features.
Planned improvements:
  • Option to generate images for makeplayingcards.com, packaged in a zip file. Will be including /u/SpencerDub's new proxy back designs.
  • Option to select alternate art for cards that have it.
  • Users can submit pictures of their proxying results to be published on the website blog page.
  • General UI improvements.
  • Other language support. /u/5N00P1 had asked about adding German card scans.

Thank you all for your support and using this website. As always, I appreciate all feedback and suggestions. I can be reached on reddit at /u/axmccx, on various Netrunner Discord Channels, and at alexmccx[at]gmail[dot]com.


Website Launch

March 31, 2019

Originally posted on reddit

Hey everyone. I'd like to announce Proxy Nexus, a website I've been working on the last few days. It makes high quality proxies using /u/LepcisMagna's scans and images from the Downfall cards, unchanged from the print-and-play pdfs.

You can enter a card list, a decklist URL from NetrunnerDB or select an official set. When picking any of the three Core sets, you can choose between single set or a full playset. Also, whenever a flippable ID is selected (Sync and Biotech), the back images are also included.

Clicking "Download PDF" currently brings up the browser's print panel, which lets you save to PDF or print directly. Make sure all the cards have loaded beforehand and that the margins are narrow enough so that 9 cards fit per game.

I've made some enhancements to the scanned images. First, I applied the despeckle enhancement from Gimp to all images. I also use ImageMagick's mogrify tool to slightly brighten and enhance the colors of the cards. The command I used: "mogrify -modulate 105,105". Have a look here for comparison. I believe these enhancements improve the print quality significantly, but I'm open to feedback.

My exams are coming soon, so I've gotta take a break, but I plan on adding the following improvements
  • Generate PDF on server end.
  • Reduce image sizes with minimal quality loss.
  • Provide option to select available alt art for cards that have it.
  • Provide option to download a zip file of image files ready for printing at MPC (makeplayingcards.com). The images will include a black border. I will also NOT include any NISEI cards selected in this option, and will prompt users to buy a set from the NISEI marketplaces to support them.
  • Make suggestions when printing certain cards to include others. Eg, when printing Rebirth, ask whether to include other IDs in the same faction. Similar idea with DJ Fenris. When printing Adam, ask whether to include copies of the directives.

I'm open to suggestions on functionality and style.

I hope this makes it easier for newer players to get into the game and for others who are unable to find missing sets. Thanks for checking this out!