DETERMINING BARCODE LOCATIONS IN DOCUMENTS

• US 20150001303A1
• Filed: 06/26/2014
• Published: 01/01/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 06/28/2013
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Kodak Alaris Inc (KPP (no. 2) Trustees Ltd.)
• Original Assignee: Kodak Alaris Inc (KPP (no. 2) Trustees Ltd.)
• Inventors: Adams, James E. Jr., Snyder, Jeffrey Clarence
• Granted Patent: US 9,378,405 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 235/462.08
• CPC Class Codes: G06K 7/1443 locating of the code in an image
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 10/25 Determination of region of interest [ROI] or a volume of interest [VOI]
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 10/44 Local feature extraction by analysis of parts of the pattern, e.g. by detecting edges, contours, loops, corners, strokes or intersections; Connectivity analysis, e.g. of connected components

Abstract

A method of producing barcode locations within a document comprising providing an original digital image of the document; using a processor for producing a normalized image from the original digital image; producing a gradient image from the normalized image; producing a plurality of bounding boxes from the gradient image; and producing bounding box test results by testing each bounding box for the presence of a barcode; and producing barcode locations within the document from the bounding box test results.

Claims

1. A method of producing barcode locations within a document comprising:

(a) providing an original digital image of the document;

(b) using a processor for;

(i) producing a normalized image from the original digital image;

(ii) producing a gradient image from the normalized image;

(iii) producing a plurality of bounding boxes from the gradient image; and

(iv) producing bounding box test results by testing each bounding box for the presence of a barcode; and

(c) producing barcode locations within the document from the bounding box test results.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein (b) (i) includes producing a grayscale image from the original digital image and producing a full-scale histogram stretched image from the grayscale image.

3. The method of claim 2 further including using histogram penetration to produce the full-scale histogram stretched image.

4. The method of claim 1 wherein (b) (ii) includes producing a downsampled image from the normalized image and a directional gradient image from the downsampled image.

5. The method of claim 4 further including using histogram stretching and thresholding on the directional gradient image to produce the gradient image.

6. The method of claim 1 wherein (b) (iii) includes finding minimum bounding boxes around each feature in the gradient image.

7. The method of claim 1 wherein (b) (iv) includes for each bounding box region within the normalized image testing for the presence of a minimum barcode pixel value and a maximum barcode pixel value.

8. The method of claim 1 wherein (b) (iv) includes for each bounding box region within the gradient image computing a barcode black pixel ratio and comparing it to a barcode black pixel ratio threshold value.

9. A method of producing improved barcode regions within a document comprising:

(a) providing an original digital image of the document;

(b) using a processor for;

(i) producing a normalized image from the original digital image;

(ii) producing a gradient image from the normalized image;

(iii) producing a plurality of bounding boxes from the gradient image; and

(iv) producing bounding box test results by testing each bounding box for the presence of a barcode;

(c) producing barcode locations within the document from the bounding box test results;

(d) producing barcode regions within the document from the barcode locations; and

(e) producing improved barcode regions from the barcode regions.

10. The method of claim 9 wherein (e) further includes processing the barcode regions differently from the rest of the document.

11. The method of claim 10 further including not processing the barcode regions as the document is processed.