[maemo-developers] Gsoc Idea Barcode Reader

[From: David Greaves]

Simon Pickering wrote:
>>>> 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.

This came up in discussion recently on irc.

Can I suggest you look at providing a dbus interface.

This should give you hooks into a few areas and some well defined but well
linked breakpoints for the project. It also lets you link to non-python solutions.

David

-- 
"Don't worry, you'll be fine; I saw it work in a cartoon once..."