Pervasive 2D Barcodes for Camera Phone Applications
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Edith Cowan University Research Online ECU Publications Pre. 2011 2007 Pervasive 2D Barcodes for Camera Phone Applications Hiroko Kato Edith Cowan University Keng T. Tan Edith Cowan University Follow this and additional works at: https://ro.ecu.edu.au/ecuworks Part of the Computer Sciences Commons 10.1109/MPRV.2007.80 This is an Author's Accepted Manuscript of: Kato, H., & Tan, K. (2007). Pervasive 2D Barcodes for Camera Phone Applications. IEEE Pervasive Computing: Mobile and Ubiquitous Systems, 6(4), 76-85. Available here © 2007 IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. Permission from IEEE must be obtained for all other uses, in any current or future media, including reprinting/republishing this material for advertising or promotional purposes, creating new collective works, for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or reuse of any copyrighted component of this work in other works. This Journal Article is posted at Research Online. https://ro.ecu.edu.au/ecuworks/1507 MOBILE COMPUTING Pervasive 2D Barcodes for Camera Phone Applications As 2D barcodes gain popularity, do we need to determine a global standard for camera phone applications? If so, which barcode is best? wo inventions have contributed to So, in a previous study, we evaluated six 2D bar- the commercial viability of perva- codes using eight criteria for standardization sive 2D barcodes: CyberCode1 and potential: omnidirectional symbol reading, sup- J-SH09. In 2000, Sony introduced port for low-resolution cameras, reading robust- CyberCode—one of the earliest uses ness under different lighting conditions, barcode Tof a 2D barcode for developing a visual tagging reading distance, error correction capability, secu- system. Although CyberCode wasn’t imple- rity, support for multiple character sets, and data mented on a camera phone—it was for aug- capacity.3 We also considered the fidelity of the mented reality systems—it showed the potential camera phone’s captured image as a metric for for developing pervasive applications using 2D- gauging reading reliability. Here, we review the barcode technology. six 2D barcodes and then use an additional met- Two years later, J-Phone (now Softbank Mo- ric—a first-read rate—to quantitatively verify our bile) and Sharp introduced J-SH09, the first com- earlier results and better gauge reading reliability. mercial camera phone with a reader for the 1D Japanese Article Number bar- 2D barcodes for camera phones Hiroko Kato and Keng T. Tan code and the 2D barcode, QR Although more than 30 2D barcodes are in use, Edith Cowan University (Quick Response) Code. This we examined only the six that camera phone opened the door for ordinary applications were using at the time of our study. users to actively interact with (Two new codes, mCode and Bee Tagg, are now 1D- and 2D-barcode technologies in Japan. in use as well.) We can divide these into two cat- However, this new mobile technology is still in egories: database 2D barcodes and index-based its infancy and, despite its potential, hasn’t yet 2D barcodes. been widely adopted outside Japan. Also, al- The database 2D barcodes—QR Code, VSCode, though QR Code isn’t the only available 2D bar- and Data Matrix—were initially invented to code, it has become the de facto standard for improve data capacity for industrial applications. many mobile phone companies and advertising However, when integrated into mobile phones with departments in Japan (see the “Mobile Applica- built-in cameras that can scan and decode data, tions Using QR Code” sidebar).2 We thus wanted these 2D barcodes can operate as portable data- to evaluate QR Code against other available bases, letting users access information anytime, any- options and evaluate the need for a global 2D- where, regardless of network connectivity. barcode standard for camera phone applications. The index-based 2D barcodes—Visual Code, 76 PERVASIVEcomputing Published by the IEEE Computer Society ■ 1536-1268/07/$25.00 © 2007 IEEE Mobile Applications Using QR Code apan has witnessed a remarkable increase in the number of cam- real-time information about public transport schedules and events. J era phone users using Quick Response Code applications. Japan. QR Code can also be used without network connectivity. For ex- internet.com and Express Research conducted a joint survey of 330 ample, by simply capturing a QR Code symbol printed on a busi- people (ages 20–69) in August 2006 (see http://japan.internet.com/ ness card, users can transfer the contact information encoded in research/20060830/1.html [in Japanese]). 82.4 percent (187 people) the symbol to their phone’s address books. of the respondents who had camera phones with QR Code readers QR Code can also act as a portable file such as an e-ticket or e- (227 of the 330) used camera phones with QR Code (up from 6 per- coupon. For example, Japanese airlines offer self check-in using QR cent in 2004). This trend is especially true for young people. Accord- Code e-tickets, and in June 2004, Japan Coca-Cola used QR Code ing to Info Plant, a 2005 survey of 7,660 people under age 20 found as an e-coupon for its new product (Coca-Cola C2) gift campaign. that nearly 90 percent of the respondents have had experience using In the first three days, 200,000 users downloaded the e-coupon, QR Code (see www.itmedia.co.jp/survey/articles/0509/21/news091. and 20,000 participants got the Coca-Cola C2 from the net- html [in Japanese]). worked soft-drink vending machine C-mode, which interacts with Users can create QR Codes using free barcode generators. They camera phones via QR Codes (see http://itpro.nikkeibp.co.jp/free/ can then exchange them over the Internet, save them on mobile NC/NEWS/20040610/145682 [in Japanese]). phones, or print them. Some users have even developed their own Another QR Code application is the agricultural industry’s recent applications. An example is the QR Code Blog (www.qrcodeblog. implementation of a food-history information service aimed to im- com), which is written in QR Code symbols. prove produce quality and assure consumers of food safety. The The media most often used among those 187 respondents were Ibaraki Agricultural Produce Net Catalogue (see http://ibrk.jp/ newspaper and magazine articles (62.6 percent), and the data type default.aspx [in Japanese] or www.cctv.com/english/20070110/ most decoded by camera phones was URLs (92.0 percent), fol- 102029_1.shtml) now includes a QR Code on its packages. By lowed by email addresses (21.9 percent). The most popular QR scanning the code, consumers can obtain the supplier’s contact Code application seems to be linking camera phones to the Inter- information, the food’s harvest and shipment dates, and a list of net, where users have “always on” access to online shopping and the fertilizer and agricultural chemicals used. ShotCode, and ColorCode—were de- is 1:1:3:1:1 from any angle. This lets the data even if the symbol is damaged. Four veloped for camera phones, so they take reader quickly find the detection pat- different error-correction levels are avail- into account the reading limitations of terns, which in turn promotes ultra-high- able according to the user’s requirement: these built-in cameras. They have a speed barcode reading. Level L (approximately 7 percent, M much lower data capacity than data- QR Code can encode all types of data (approximately 15 percent), Q (approxi- base 2D barcodes, but they offer more including symbols, binary data, control mately 25 percent), and H (approxi- robust and reliable barcode reading. codes, and multimedia data. The maxi- mately 30 percent). (The percentages are Each barcode basically works as an mum data capacities are 7,089 characters the data restoration rates for total code- index that links the digital world to the for numeric data, 4,296 characters for words—a unit that constructs the data real world, so these barcodes require alphanumeric data, 2,953 bytes for binary area. One codeword of QR Code is equal network connectivity. data, and 1,817 characters for Japanese to eight bits.) Kanji and Kana data. The symbol ver- The masking technique allocates the QR Code sions of QR Code range from version 1 black and white dots evenly and helps pre- Denso Wave developed QR Code4 in (21 ´ 21 modules) to version 40 (177 ´ vent pattern duplication. This helps read- 1994 to improve the reading speed of 177 modules). However, mobile applica- ers avoid code misreadings so they can complex-structured 2D barcodes. QR tions use only versions 1–10 to take into quickly process the code. Eight masking Code’s distinctive feature is its position- account camera phone limitations. patterns exist, and encoders evaluate each detection patterns, located at three of Several QR Code features can enhance pattern to select the best one (see figure symbol’s corners (see figure 1a).2 When the code’s reading robustness, including 1b). So, after masking, if lines and blocks a reader scans a symbol, it first detects error correction, a masking technique,5 still exist that are the same color, the points these patterns. The ratio of the black and and a structured-append function.4 By for the mask are reduced. The encoder white on a line that passes through the applying Reed-Solomon error correction selects the mask with the highest mark. center of the pattern (that is, B:W:B:W:B) coding, QR Code can restore the original The structured-append function en- OCTOBER–DECEMBER 2007 PERVASIVEcomputing 77 MOBILE COMPUTING Position Timing pattern detection CB A patterns Quiet zone (4 cells) 1131 1 A B 1131 1 Format information C Data area 1131 1 (cells) Inside the position detection pattern Separator Alignment pattern (a) Choose one Outcome of masking Masking pattern Original symbol (b) (c) Figure 1.