Decoding Barcodes from Display Images via Buffer Capture
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Solution Overview
Problem
Prior art portable electronic devices lack the capability to effectively decode encoded data markings visually presented on their displays when the data is not captured by the device's built-in scanning engine, requiring cumbersome workarounds like printing images for scanning.
Innovation Solution
A decoding device with a processor that captures and decodes barcodes from both scanning images and visually presented display images, using a modified decoding pipeline to disrupt and decode barcodes within display images, providing the decoded data to application routines as input.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Adaptability or versatility
If the decoding pipeline is architected to extend continuously from the scanning engine to the decoding application, then automated control of capturing images is enabled, but the device cannot decode encoded data markings that are visually presented on the display from other sources
Solution Approach 1:
The decoding pipeline is modified to accept multiple input sources - both captured images from the scanning engine and display images from the display buffer. This multi-functionality allows the same decoding application and processor to handle both traditional scanned barcodes and barcodes captured from the display screen, resolving the contradiction between maintaining automated control architecture and enabling versatility in barcode sources
Solution Approach 2:
The display buffer serves as an intermediary component that stores display images and makes them accessible to the decoding pipeline. This intermediary allows the decoding system to access images from the display without requiring direct integration between the display subsystem and decoding engine, thus enabling new functionality while maintaining architectural integrity
2Ease of operation
If an image of an encoded data marking is electronically transmitted to another electronic device, then the data can be accessed remotely, but the receiving device cannot directly decode the barcode without printing it out
Solution Approach 1:
The system creates a digital copy of the displayed image from the display buffer and feeds it directly to the decoding pipeline, eliminating the need for physical printing. This digital copying approach allows the barcode to be decoded from the transmitted image data without requiring intermediate physical output and rescanning, thus resolving the contradiction between ease of operation and time loss
Solution Approach 2:
The mechanical process of printing the image on paper and then scanning it with the scanning engine is replaced by a digital signal processing approach. The display image data is directly processed by the decoding application through software, substituting the mechanical print-scan workflow with an electronic decoding process that is both easier to operate and faster
Data Source
AI summary
A decoding device includes a display, a display buffer to store a current display image of what is currently visually presented on the display, a scanning engine to capture scanning images of objects, and a processor configured to: decode first barcodes carried on surfaces of objects in the scanning images to retrieve first data encoded within the first barcodes; provide the first data to an application routine as input; and in response to a screen capture of the current display image from the display buffer, perform operations including disrupt the decoding of the first barcodes carried on the surfaces of objects of the scanning images, decode a second barcode within the current display image to retrieve second data encoded within the second barcode, and provide the second data to the application routine as input.