Method and apparatus for generating and decoding a visually significant barcode

• US 6,751,352 B1
• Filed: 05/25/2000
• Issued: 06/15/2004
• Est. Priority Date: 05/25/2000
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P. (HP Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P. (HP Inc.)
• Inventors: Baharav, Izhak, Harrison, Timothy, Hanson, Angela K., Xu, Yihong, Mahoney, Terry P., Yen, Jonathan, Shaked, Doron, Herley, Cormac, Levy, Avraham
• Primary Examiner(s): MARIAM, DANIEL G
• Application Number:
  US09/579,070
• Time in Patent Office: 1,482 Days
• Field of Search: 382/181, 382/183, 382/232, 382/233, 382/306, 382/100, 382/112, 382/173, 382/203, 382/225, 235/462.01, 235/462.09, 235/462.1
• US Class Current: 382/183
• CPC Class Codes: G06K 1/121 by printing code marks applying code marks to labels B65C9/46; marking or coding completed packages B65B61/26
• CPC Class Codes: G06K 19/06028 using bar codes
• CPC Class Codes: G06K 19/06037 multi-dimensional coding

Abstract

A barcode system for generating and decoding a barcode with visual significance. The barcode system of the present invention includes an encoding module for receiving a message and a logo and generating a visually significant barcode based on these inputs. A decoding module is also provided for receiving an acquired version of a visually significant barcode that may have been degraded in a typical document handling channel (e.g., through the printing, scanning, or copying process) and for recovering the message specified by the visually significant barcode.

Claims

1. A visually significant barcode system comprising:

an encoding module configured to receive a message and a base image and to modulate the base image with a graphical encoding of the message to produce a visually significant barcode having the message encoded therein by

dividing the base image into multiple image areas,

segmenting image areas to be encoded into multiple groups based on pixel values in the image areas to be encoded, and

encoding the segmented image areas with sets of two-dimensional code patterns to graphically encode the message in the visually significant barcode, wherein each set of code patterns encodes a respective corresponding group of image areas.

2. The visually significant barcode system of claim 1 further comprising:

a print engine coupled to the encoding module for receiving the visually significant barcode and based thereon for rendering a hard copy of the visually significant barcode.

3. The visually significant barcode system of claim 2 wherein the print engine utilizes a halftone algorithm to render the hard copy of the visually significant barcode.

4. The visually significant barcode system of claim 1 further comprising:

a decoding module for receiving an acquired version of the visually significant barcode and based thereon for recovering the message encoded therein.

5. The visually significant barcode system of claim 4 further comprising:

an acquisition engine coupled to the decoding module for receiving a hard copy having a visually significant barcode, and based thereon, for generating the acquired version of the visually significant barcode.

6. The barcode system of claim 4 wherein the decoding module is configured to recover the message encoded in the acquired visually significant barcode by partitioning the acquired visually significant barcode into multiple sub-images, and comparing sub-images against code patterns used to encode the message.

7. The barcode system of claim 4 wherein the encoding module and the decoding module are embodied on a media.

8. The barcode system of claim 7 wherein the media is incorporated in an office machine in the form of a memory.

9. The barcode system of claim 8 wherein the office machine is one of a personal computer, an all-in-one office machine, a printer, and a scanner.

10. The barcode system of claim 7 wherein the media is a computer readable medium.

11. The barcode system of claim 10 wherein the computer readable medium is one of a floppy disk and a compact disc.

12. The barcode system of claim 1 wherein the message is one of an electronic mail address, a uniform resource locator web address, authentication information, a facsimile number, and a file name and location.

13. The barcode system of claim 1 wherein the base image includes a user input feature for allowing a user to provide information.

14. The barcode system of claim 13 wherein the user input feature is one of a circle selection form, check box form, and fill-in form.

15. The barcode system of claim 1 wherein the visually significant barcode is utilized in one of an automatic fax-back application, an automatic email-back application, copy from electronic version application, and a most-recent document application.

16. The barcode system of claim 1 wherein image areas to be encoded are segmented into multiple halftone groups based on gray level values in the images to be encoded, and the segmented image areas are encoded with respective corresponding sets of two-dimensional, coded halftone patterns.

17. The barcode system of claim 1 wherein the base image is an M×

N pixel image, each image area and each code pattern is a respective K×

K matrix, and the encoding module encodes the segmented image areas by converting the K×

K image area matrices to K×

K code pattern matrices in accordance with a mapping between the code pattern matrices and the message, wherein M, N, and K are integers.

18. The barcode system of claim 1 wherein the mapping between the code pattern matrices and the message corresponds to an error correction code linking code pattern matrices to symbols of the message.

19. The barcode system of claim 1 wherein the encoding module is configured to convert areas of the base image to fiducial mark areas of the visually significant barcode.

20. The barcode system of claim 19 wherein the encoding module is configured to convert corner areas of the base image to fiducial mark areas of the visually significant bar code.

21. The barcode system of claim 19 wherein each fiducial mark area comprises a region of bright pixels isolating a region of dark pixels from code pattern areas of the visually significant barcode.

22. The barcode system of claim 1 wherein the message received by the encoding module corresponds to a compressed version of an original message.

23. The barcode system of claim 1 wherein each of the base image areas and the code patterns has a same number of pixels.

24. The barcode system of claim 1 wherein each code pattern comprises a pattern of bright and dark pixels.

25. The barcode system of claim 1 wherein each code pattern comprises a multi-tone pattern of dots.

26. The barcode system of claim 25 wherein each code pattern comprises a two-tone pattern of bright dots and dark dots.

27. The barcode system of claim 25 wherein each dot is a square pixel area.