barcode tricks?

Discussion for Nokia Point and Find

04-05-2009 17:47

Does anyone have a tricks about lighting or distance re: getting barcodes to scan?

It seems like 70% of the time the product barcode is never scanned. The camera just keeps going through the illumination-and-auto-focus cycle over and over. I spent maybe a minute on one before it worked and told me it didn't have anything on the product in its database. :(

Love the idea, but the barcode detection seems to need a LOT of work....

Comments

Submitted by kviswateja on 04-05-2009 18:12.

yeah same problem here on the n78.but overall it's very nice.nokia's preview into the next gen. pervasive computing.works good on the n81 too.
no proper rendering in landscape mode.

Submitted by scmoatti on 04-05-2009 22:34.

Hi kviswateja,

Sorry but we don't support landscape mode at this point. Thanks for your understanding.

Regards,

SC
Point & Find team

Submitted by scmoatti on 05-05-2009 16:44.

Hi all, thanks for all your comments.

To optimize the recognition of the barcode reader, make sure you hold the device ~10cm from the object with the barcode centered in the ViewFinder, so that it occupies between 1/4 and 1/3 of the screen. As much as possible, point on a flat surface and with direct lighting. The camera will auto-focus until it recognizes the barcode among a few million products.

It will happen that a specific code isn't recognized, and we are constantly working to expand our catalog. If there are specific products you'd like to flag, click here and send us the reference (UPC code). Also, barcodes that are too small won't be recognized, e.g. if the vertical bars are thinner than 1 pixel.

Some of our more recent handsets, e.g. E71, have superior recognition rates than the S60 3.1 devices because their lens is better and their autofocus faster. We also have a number of usability improvements on our roadmap, like drawing a barcode rectangle, optimizing camera buffer transfer, etc., but then it all depends on priorities... ;-)

As far as detection, the technology we use is on par or above the ones typically available on the market (most of those technologies are much slower because they use high-res snapshots of the barcode image instead of working in real time like P&F). But you're absolutely right that there is room for improvement!! I will pass on your comments to the team.

Regards,

SC
P&F team

Submitted by mbrett on 07-05-2009 08:35.

Thanks for the swift response.

~10cm seems like quite a long way away and would meen that the minimum bar code size would not be that small would it?

Are you able suggest the minimum size of a barcode worth scanning? (I'm using an N95 (FP3.1)

Thanks

mbrett
N95 8Gb (Product Code: 0558787 (UK)) FW 31.0.018

Submitted by scmoatti on 08-05-2009 00:57.

Hi mbrett,

Width is what matters for 1d barcode recognition (height is not important), and any barcode of width smaller than 2cm is very difficult to recognize.

Hope this helps,
SC
P&F team

Submitted by mbrett on 08-05-2009 08:56.

Couldn't get it recognise a barcode c.4cm wide and c.1.5cm tall.

mbrett
N95 8Gb (Product Code: 0558787 (UK)) FW 31.0.018

Submitted by scmoatti on 11-05-2009 19:08.

Hi mbrett, can you give me the UPC code that did not get recognized? It's the 13-digit number just below the vertical lines.

Thanks,
SC
P&F team