Apparatus and method for decoding damaged optical codes
First Claim
1. A method of decoding a code contained in an image, comprising:
- identifying an area within said image that contains a code;
tracing a contour of said code;
locating at least a portion of a finder pattern within the code;
scanning at least one region of the code to detect a known characteristic of the code;
labeling at least a portion of said at least one region as an erasure region based on whether said known characteristic is detected; and
decoding the code.
7 Assignments
0 Petitions
Accused Products
Abstract
An improved optical code reading system and method that enhances the ability of a reader to locate a symbol within a field of view and enhances the error-correcting properties of the encoding scheme commonly used in 2D bar codes. The reader offsets the effects of damaged finder patterns and missing symbol perimeters and, thereafter, detects high-level symbol information such as the code type, symbol size, and the number of rows and columns in the symbol. The reader then identifies those missing portions of a damaged symbol and marks each missing data bit location with a predetermined indicator. A decoding algorithm then interprets the missing bit indicator as an error of known location (e.g., an “erasure”), thereby nearly doubling the error correcting strength of all bar codes employing the Reed-Solomon error correction scheme.
-
Citations
22 Claims
-
1. A method of decoding a code contained in an image, comprising:
-
identifying an area within said image that contains a code;
tracing a contour of said code;
locating at least a portion of a finder pattern within the code;
scanning at least one region of the code to detect a known characteristic of the code;
labeling at least a portion of said at least one region as an erasure region based on whether said known characteristic is detected; and
decoding the code. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10)
-
-
11. The method of claim 11 wherein:
-
said step of scanning comprises;
applying a plurality of parallel scan lines across said code to detect a number of rows within the code;
measuring a height for a first segment of each detected row; and
said step of labeling comprises labeling as an erasure region any row segments having a measured height not within a predetermined height range. - View Dependent Claims (13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22)
-
-
12. A method of decoding a code contained in an image, comprising:
-
identifying an area within said image that contains a code;
tracing a contour of said code;
locating at least one portion of a finder pattern within the code;
determining a code type for said code based on said at least one portion of said finder pattern;
scanning at least one region of the code to detect a known characteristic of the code type;
labeling at least a portion of said at least one region as an erasure region based on whether said known characteristic is detected; and
decoding the code.
-
Specification