Suggestions for PocketPC SDK for 1D/2D Barcode Scanning via

For many years I have wanted a solution to a problem I have by using
my PocketPC as a Barcode Scanner. Some of the latest nifty solutions I
have seen lately have little applications that use the built-in Camera
(in what appears to be in video mode, not still camera mode) to scan a
2D barcode, which makes a chime sound then passes a user to a web site
on the PPC (the web site being encoded in the 2D Barcode).

I would love to pretty much do the exact same thing except capture the
image (save the barcode), display the decoded text (and write it to a
text file with a time stamp) and trigger audio recording. Basically
using the device for capturing a tonn of barcodes while recording
audio.

Does anyone know where a good place to start for this would be for
Visual Studio 2008? .NET (C# or VB.NET) development is my forte.

Are there any hardware considerations I have to keep mindful off? I
will need several PocketPC's running this and have to collect the
stored data at the end of the day.

ANY suggestions or directions would be greatly appreciated!

ChuckM

jp2msft
Fri Feb 29 11:12:04 CST 2008

Try getting in touch with one of those developers that created that latest
nifty solution you are talking about.

Otherwise, if you want to do it yourself:

First, crack the image stream so you can read the pixels it contains
manaully - that can get quite involved, especially with JPEG images! I went
that route once, and just gave up!

After you get the image interpreted, determine what format the barcode is in
(there were about 15 popular ones we used back in 1996), then apply the logic
of that barcode to read/interpret the information in it.

Like I said: If you can find that developer, you are golden!

"cmarinotti@yahoo.com" wrote:

> For many years I have wanted a solution to a problem I have by using
> my PocketPC as a Barcode Scanner. Some of the latest nifty solutions I
> have seen lately have little applications that use the built-in Camera
> (in what appears to be in video mode, not still camera mode) to scan a
> 2D barcode, which makes a chime sound then passes a user to a web site
> on the PPC (the web site being encoded in the 2D Barcode).
>
> I would love to pretty much do the exact same thing except capture the
> image (save the barcode), display the decoded text (and write it to a
> text file with a time stamp) and trigger audio recording. Basically
> using the device for capturing a tonn of barcodes while recording
> audio.
>
> Does anyone know where a good place to start for this would be for
> Visual Studio 2008? .NET (C# or VB.NET) development is my forte.
>
> Are there any hardware considerations I have to keep mindful off? I
> will need several PocketPC's running this and have to collect the
> stored data at the end of the day.
>
> ANY suggestions or directions would be greatly appreciated!
>
> ChuckM
>

ctacke/>
Fri Feb 29 11:24:49 CST 2008

I think you're probably talking about QRCodes. We ported the desktop stuff
to the device a while back, but pulled it from our site because it's GPL and
we don't particularly agree with the viral nature of GPL. The port wasn't
that difficult, however - I imagine you could do it in a few days.


--

Chris Tacke, eMVP
Join the Embedded Developer Community
http://community.opennetcf.com



<cmarinotti@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:704162ba-0227-4f31-a63b-71064652f648@d4g2000prg.googlegroups.com...
> For many years I have wanted a solution to a problem I have by using
> my PocketPC as a Barcode Scanner. Some of the latest nifty solutions I
> have seen lately have little applications that use the built-in Camera
> (in what appears to be in video mode, not still camera mode) to scan a
> 2D barcode, which makes a chime sound then passes a user to a web site
> on the PPC (the web site being encoded in the 2D Barcode).
>
> I would love to pretty much do the exact same thing except capture the
> image (save the barcode), display the decoded text (and write it to a
> text file with a time stamp) and trigger audio recording. Basically
> using the device for capturing a tonn of barcodes while recording
> audio.
>
> Does anyone know where a good place to start for this would be for
> Visual Studio 2008? .NET (C# or VB.NET) development is my forte.
>
> Are there any hardware considerations I have to keep mindful off? I
> will need several PocketPC's running this and have to collect the
> stored data at the end of the day.
>
> ANY suggestions or directions would be greatly appreciated!
>
> ChuckM

jp2msft
Fri Feb 29 12:41:01 CST 2008

Oh sure, *you* could!

But "signatureString.Contains("MVP") = False" for me!

:)

...so far.

"<ctacke/>" wrote:

> I think you're probably talking about QRCodes. We ported the desktop stuff
> to the device a while back, but pulled it from our site because it's GPL and
> we don't particularly agree with the viral nature of GPL. The port wasn't
> that difficult, however - I imagine you could do it in a few days.
>
>
> --
>
> Chris Tacke, eMVP
> Join the Embedded Developer Community
> http://community.opennetcf.com
>
>
>
> <cmarinotti@yahoo.com> wrote in message
> news:704162ba-0227-4f31-a63b-71064652f648@d4g2000prg.googlegroups.com...
> > For many years I have wanted a solution to a problem I have by using
> > my PocketPC as a Barcode Scanner. Some of the latest nifty solutions I
> > have seen lately have little applications that use the built-in Camera
> > (in what appears to be in video mode, not still camera mode) to scan a
> > 2D barcode, which makes a chime sound then passes a user to a web site
> > on the PPC (the web site being encoded in the 2D Barcode).
> >
> > I would love to pretty much do the exact same thing except capture the
> > image (save the barcode), display the decoded text (and write it to a
> > text file with a time stamp) and trigger audio recording. Basically
> > using the device for capturing a tonn of barcodes while recording
> > audio.
> >
> > Does anyone know where a good place to start for this would be for
> > Visual Studio 2008? .NET (C# or VB.NET) development is my forte.
> >
> > Are there any hardware considerations I have to keep mindful off? I
> > will need several PocketPC's running this and have to collect the
> > stored data at the end of the day.
> >
> > ANY suggestions or directions would be greatly appreciated!
> >
> > ChuckM
>
>
>

r_z_aret
Fri Feb 29 14:43:36 CST 2008

On Thu, 28 Feb 2008 11:11:39 -0800 (PST), cmarinotti@yahoo.com wrote:

>For many years I have wanted a solution to a problem I have by using
>my PocketPC as a Barcode Scanner. Some of the latest nifty solutions I
>have seen lately have little applications that use the built-in Camera
>(in what appears to be in video mode, not still camera mode) to scan a
>2D barcode, which makes a chime sound then passes a user to a web site
>on the PPC (the web site being encoded in the 2D Barcode).
>
>I would love to pretty much do the exact same thing except capture the
>image (save the barcode), display the decoded text (and write it to a
>text file with a time stamp) and trigger audio recording. Basically
>using the device for capturing a tonn of barcodes while recording
>audio.

Any bar code scanner (1D or 2D) for a Windows CE/Pocket PC device
should come with a "keyboard wedge", which is a program that redirects
the result by emulating a keyboard, and thus sends the result to
whatever window has focus. The result shows up as a string with the
info you want separated by special characters. Not too difficult to
parse, once you find the specs.

So you could write a fairly simple program that shows an edit box,
detects changes in that box (as when a bar code "appears"), parses the
bar code, and starts a recording if the bar code is legit.


>
>Does anyone know where a good place to start for this would be for
>Visual Studio 2008? .NET (C# or VB.NET) development is my forte.
>
>Are there any hardware considerations I have to keep mindful off? I
>will need several PocketPC's running this and have to collect the
>stored data at the end of the day.
>
>ANY suggestions or directions would be greatly appreciated!

I don't know of any add-on 2D scanners. Socket makes some add-on 1D
scanners
(http://www.socketmobile.com/products/bar-code-scanning-data-collection/series3/).
I know several companies that make rugged devices with built-in 2D
scanners, but these are a bit pricey ($1000-$2000 US).

The industrial devices I've encountered usually provide an SDK. Pretty
much required if the device isn't actually a Pocket PC. Some of the
SDKs include source code for the keyboard wedge. You could do what you
want with some rather slight modifications of a wedge.

>
>ChuckM

-----------------------------------------
To reply to me, remove the underscores (_) from my email address (and please indicate which newsgroup and message).

Robert E. Zaret, eMVP
PenFact, Inc.
20 Park Plaza, Suite 478
Boston, MA 02116
www.penfact.com

ctacke/>
Fri Feb 29 15:23:31 CST 2008

But he's after software to just use the device camera to take a picture of
the barcode, then have it analyze the photo for barcode info.

Casey Chesnut did this ages ago for 1-D UPC codes and blogged it. QRCode is
a pretty common 2-D that this mechanism works well for.


--

Chris Tacke, eMVP
Join the Embedded Developer Community
http://community.opennetcf.com


<r_z_aret@pen_fact.com> wrote in message
news:ripgs31kh8im2sifg1ie9qcqfurvr15ntd@4ax.com...
> On Thu, 28 Feb 2008 11:11:39 -0800 (PST), cmarinotti@yahoo.com wrote:
>
>>For many years I have wanted a solution to a problem I have by using
>>my PocketPC as a Barcode Scanner. Some of the latest nifty solutions I
>>have seen lately have little applications that use the built-in Camera
>>(in what appears to be in video mode, not still camera mode) to scan a
>>2D barcode, which makes a chime sound then passes a user to a web site
>>on the PPC (the web site being encoded in the 2D Barcode).
>>
>>I would love to pretty much do the exact same thing except capture the
>>image (save the barcode), display the decoded text (and write it to a
>>text file with a time stamp) and trigger audio recording. Basically
>>using the device for capturing a tonn of barcodes while recording
>>audio.
>
> Any bar code scanner (1D or 2D) for a Windows CE/Pocket PC device
> should come with a "keyboard wedge", which is a program that redirects
> the result by emulating a keyboard, and thus sends the result to
> whatever window has focus. The result shows up as a string with the
> info you want separated by special characters. Not too difficult to
> parse, once you find the specs.
>
> So you could write a fairly simple program that shows an edit box,
> detects changes in that box (as when a bar code "appears"), parses the
> bar code, and starts a recording if the bar code is legit.
>
>
>>
>>Does anyone know where a good place to start for this would be for
>>Visual Studio 2008? .NET (C# or VB.NET) development is my forte.
>>
>>Are there any hardware considerations I have to keep mindful off? I
>>will need several PocketPC's running this and have to collect the
>>stored data at the end of the day.
>>
>>ANY suggestions or directions would be greatly appreciated!
>
> I don't know of any add-on 2D scanners. Socket makes some add-on 1D
> scanners
> (http://www.socketmobile.com/products/bar-code-scanning-data-collection/series3/).
> I know several companies that make rugged devices with built-in 2D
> scanners, but these are a bit pricey ($1000-$2000 US).
>
> The industrial devices I've encountered usually provide an SDK. Pretty
> much required if the device isn't actually a Pocket PC. Some of the
> SDKs include source code for the keyboard wedge. You could do what you
> want with some rather slight modifications of a wedge.
>
>>
>>ChuckM
>
> -----------------------------------------
> To reply to me, remove the underscores (_) from my email address (and
> please indicate which newsgroup and message).
>
> Robert E. Zaret, eMVP
> PenFact, Inc.
> 20 Park Plaza, Suite 478
> Boston, MA 02116
> www.penfact.com

r_z_aret
Sat Mar 01 11:37:36 CST 2008

On Fri, 29 Feb 2008 15:23:31 -0600, "<ctacke/>"
<ctacke[at]opennetcf[dot]com> wrote:

>But he's after software to just use the device camera to take a picture of
>the barcode, then have it analyze the photo for barcode info.

I know I didn't answer the question he actually asked. I answered the
question he will likely ask if he gives up on the approach he is
trying.


>
>Casey Chesnut did this ages ago for 1-D UPC codes and blogged it. QRCode is
>a pretty common 2-D that this mechanism works well for.

I'm sure the 2D scanner I know best starts with a picture, and I'm
inclined to generalize on this. So I assume all/most/many 2D scanners
also start with pictures. And that means the algorithms to the work
are widely known. I'm not sure how easily the OP can use them.

-----------------------------------------
To reply to me, remove the underscores (_) from my email address (and please indicate which newsgroup and message).

Robert E. Zaret, eMVP
PenFact, Inc.
20 Park Plaza, Suite 478
Boston, MA 02116
www.penfact.com

ctacke/>
Sat Mar 01 19:32:45 CST 2008

> I'm sure the 2D scanner I know best starts with a picture, and I'm
> inclined to generalize on this. So I assume all/most/many 2D scanners
> also start with pictures. And that means the algorithms to the work
> are widely known. I'm not sure how easily the OP can use them.

Could be. It's been 8+ years since I did a lot of barcoding, but at that
time Symbol's devices used a 2-D progressive laser scanner, not pictures.
Even the ones that used photos still used algorithms that were not publicly
available (if anyone could do it, why buy expensive Symbol hardware). Not
sure how much the lanscape has changed, but I know a fair number of barcodes
are patented, so general access to the decoding algorithms isn't always
possible.

QRCodes are nice becasue they are open source, and pretty darned easy to
decode.

-Chris

jp2msft
Tue Mar 04 09:38:03 CST 2008

Hey Chuck,

I found this link that might be of help to you:

http://www.furrygoat.com/2008/01/29/cuecat-2008/

If that link doesn't work, it references these two works:

http://harper.wirelessink.com/?p=83
http://cognections.typepad.com/lifeblog/2006/05/winksite_fusing.html

Hope that helps!
~Joe

"cmarinotti@yahoo.com" wrote:

> For many years I have wanted a solution to a problem I have by using
> my PocketPC as a Barcode Scanner. Some of the latest nifty solutions I
> have seen lately have little applications that use the built-in Camera
> (in what appears to be in video mode, not still camera mode) to scan a
> 2D barcode, which makes a chime sound then passes a user to a web site
> on the PPC (the web site being encoded in the 2D Barcode).
>
> I would love to pretty much do the exact same thing except capture the
> image (save the barcode), display the decoded text (and write it to a
> text file with a time stamp) and trigger audio recording. Basically
> using the device for capturing a tonn of barcodes while recording
> audio.
>
> Does anyone know where a good place to start for this would be for
> Visual Studio 2008? .NET (C# or VB.NET) development is my forte.
>
> Are there any hardware considerations I have to keep mindful off? I
> will need several PocketPC's running this and have to collect the
> stored data at the end of the day.
>
> ANY suggestions or directions would be greatly appreciated!
>
> ChuckM
>

queisser
Wed Mar 05 11:06:10 CST 2008

On Feb 28, 11:11=A0am, cmarino...@yahoo.com wrote:
> For many years I have wanted a solution to a problem I have by using
> my PocketPC as a Barcode Scanner. Some of the latest nifty solutions I
> have seen lately have little applications that use the built-in Camera
> (in what appears to be in video mode, not still camera mode) to scan a
> 2D barcode, which makes a chime sound then passes a user to a web site
> on the PPC (the web site being encoded in the 2D Barcode).
>
> I would love to pretty much do the exact same thing except capture the
> image (save the barcode), display the decoded text (and write it to a
> text file with a time stamp) and trigger audio recording. Basically
> using the device for capturing a tonn of barcodes while recording
> audio.
>
> Does anyone know where a good place to start for this would be for
> Visual Studio 2008? .NET (C# or VB.NET) development is my forte.
>
> Are there any hardware considerations I have to keep mindful off? I
> will need several PocketPC's =A0running this and have to collect the
> stored data at the end of the day.
>
> ANY suggestions or directions would be greatly appreciated!
>
> ChuckM

For the iPAQ there's a non-free Camera SDK (http://h71018.www7.hp.com/
hp_ids/register/membershipinfo.aspx) which allows you to put the
camera in preview mode, capture preview frames and then decide when
it's time to capture and save a frame. Not sure if something similar
is available for generic PocketPC cameras. So you could do something
like this:

- put camera in preview
- intercept each frame, determine whether it's a potential barcode
- when potential barcode frame is captured stop the preview and
capture frame
- decode barcode, save image and barcode contents

The hard part is determining whether there's a barcode in view and the
decoding. I don't know of a powerful barcode decoding library that
could do the work of a commercial scanner. For simple codes it
shouldn't be too hard but for 2D and dense barcodes you might be out
of luck.

Andrew (HP)

ChuckM
Wed Mar 05 22:36:01 CST 2008

Thanks everyone for the suggestions. Sorry for the delayed followup, been
sick...

Basically, to be more specific, this is for event management, with a little
more advanced features/future proofing/integrating into a live DB via WiFi.
Want a platform I can customize on a per event basis.

The closest app I can point to that does exactly the barcoding I'm looking
for it is http://www.i-nigma.com ... I don't know the developer so no way to
get how they did it. Video capture based, no need for steady hands or
pressing a "capture button". Just put it in the cross hairs.

I'd love it to work with every Windows Mobile device with a video / camera
just like i-nigma.com appears to (I'm assuming)... this allows me to change
vendors when needed.

Basically, I want to print badges, give scanners to booths at the event, and
track whom talked to whom and what they talked about, time stamped.... maybe
even some notes. Store to SD Card. Sync post event and push that data into a
large database.

I don't want a "laser scanner" add-on, since I think this app does a great
job without it. As well, that would increase the costs too significantly.

There are basic data collector devices I have seen, no screen, just a
scanner, but I don't think I want to go the route others have.

I have seriously considered using laptops with CueCats (or similar), but
that could get ugly when you have a booth with 10 people in it and having to
walk through the booth.

"queisser" wrote:

> On Feb 28, 11:11 am, cmarino...@yahoo.com wrote:
> > For many years I have wanted a solution to a problem I have by using
> > my PocketPC as a Barcode Scanner. Some of the latest nifty solutions I
> > have seen lately have little applications that use the built-in Camera
> > (in what appears to be in video mode, not still camera mode) to scan a
> > 2D barcode, which makes a chime sound then passes a user to a web site
> > on the PPC (the web site being encoded in the 2D Barcode).
> >
> > I would love to pretty much do the exact same thing except capture the
> > image (save the barcode), display the decoded text (and write it to a
> > text file with a time stamp) and trigger audio recording. Basically
> > using the device for capturing a tonn of barcodes while recording
> > audio.
> >
> > Does anyone know where a good place to start for this would be for
> > Visual Studio 2008? .NET (C# or VB.NET) development is my forte.
> >
> > Are there any hardware considerations I have to keep mindful off? I
> > will need several PocketPC's running this and have to collect the
> > stored data at the end of the day.
> >
> > ANY suggestions or directions would be greatly appreciated!
> >
> > ChuckM
>
> For the iPAQ there's a non-free Camera SDK (http://h71018.www7.hp.com/
> hp_ids/register/membershipinfo.aspx) which allows you to put the
> camera in preview mode, capture preview frames and then decide when
> it's time to capture and save a frame. Not sure if something similar
> is available for generic PocketPC cameras. So you could do something
> like this:
>
> - put camera in preview
> - intercept each frame, determine whether it's a potential barcode
> - when potential barcode frame is captured stop the preview and
> capture frame
> - decode barcode, save image and barcode contents
>
> The hard part is determining whether there's a barcode in view and the
> decoding. I don't know of a powerful barcode decoding library that
> could do the work of a commercial scanner. For simple codes it
> shouldn't be too hard but for 2D and dense barcodes you might be out
> of luck.
>
> Andrew (HP)
>