[maemo-developers] Gsoc Idea Barcode Reader

[From: Simon Pickering]

>>> Also, i think we should look at GOCR as the alternate toolkit
>>> that can be used for the project.
>>
>> Looks like that project has been renamed to Conjecture now
>> (http://www.corollarium.com/conjecture/).
>
> Reading the EAN-13 barcode should not require to complicated ocr software
> I think the basic is to draw 3 lines over an image , make it black white
> and look for known patterns (first only a series of black white and
> then looking at the length).
>
> Do you think I am underestimating this part of the problem?

No you're not underestimating it really, though in real life the black  
and white are not so black and white, more shades of grey ;)

Anyway this particular part of the problem (1D decoding) has already  
been solved many times and it seems somewhat pointless to do it again  
(as the existing 1D codes are pretty fast).

Producing a useful interface to let people obtain a decoded  
string/etc. from whatever sort of barcode is a worthy goal (and having  
the code select from a range of decoders preferably), as is improving  
the speed of some of the 2D decoders, as is producing web scraping  
functions that could be used to obtain info about a decoded barcode.

I'm sorry I've been pretty busy in the past couple of weeks, but will  
write up some (useful, I hope) comments regarding this project (on the  
wiki page? Or on the GSoC page?).

Cheers,


Simon