Automatic Real-Time Barcode Localization in Complex Scenes

Many applications exist for automatically finding and reading barcodes in complex scenes with a camera. The key problem is to search barcodes in a complex scene and supply them for a reading subsystem. However, illumination, rotation, perspective distortion and multiple barcodes circumstances make barcode localization difficult. By jointly analyzing texture and shape, we propose a realtime barcode localization method that is robust to the above problems. A user only needs to put a barcode in front of a camera at around 15 cm for common Web cameras, and the system then automatically locates and decodes the barcode. This paper only focuses at automatic localization. We will demonstrate the complete system live at the conference.

1. Introduction

Barcode has been widely used to improve the speed and accuracy of computer data entry. But the prevalent barcode readers are devices with laser-scanners or special CCD cameras, which are quite uncommon in our daily life. If barcode reading can be performed with an ordinary camera (e.g. web cam or phone camera), barcode will bring more convenience or even new experience into our daily life.