Barcode reader Wikipedia. A handheld barcode scanner. A stationary barcode scanner for a conveyor line. A barcode reader or barcode scanner is an electronic device that can read and output printed barcodes to a computer. Like a flatbed scanner, it consists of a light source, a lens and a light sensor translating optical impulses into electrical ones. Additionally, nearly all barcode readers contain decoder circuitry analyzing the barcodes image data provided by the sensor and sending the barcodes content to the scanners output port. Types of barcode scanner. editTechnologyeditBarcode readers can be differentiated by technologies as follows Pen type ScannerseditPen type readers consist of a light source and photodiode that are placed next to each other in the tip of a pen or wand. To read a bar code, the person holding the pen must move the tip of it across the bars at a relatively uniform speed. The photodiode measures the intensity of the light reflected back from the light source as the tip crosses each bar and space in the printed code. ClearImage Barcode Reader SDK. Barcode scanner software to process PDF, TIFF, JPEG images from scanner, fax, camera. Read 1D barcodes such as Code 39, Code 128, etc. PCL 6 driver to offer full functions for Universal Printing. This driver enables users to use various printing devices. The availability of functions will vary by. Letting companies and others record your drivers license data can put you at risk for identity theft, according to Consumer Reports. A barcode reader or barcode scanner is an electronic device that can read and output printed barcodes to a computer. Like a flatbed scanner, it consists of a light. The photodiode generates a waveform that is used to measure the widths of the bars and spaces in the bar code. Dark bars in the bar code absorb light and white spaces reflect light so that the voltage waveform generated by the photodiode is a representation of the bar and space pattern in the bar code. This waveform is decoded by the scanner in a manner similar to the way Morse code dots and dashes are decoded. Laser scannerseditLaser scanners work the same way as pen type readers except that they use a laser beam as the light source and typically employ either a reciprocating mirror or a rotating prism to scan the laser beam back and forth across the bar code. As with the pen type reader, a photo diode is used to measure the intensity of the light reflected back from the bar code. In both pen readers and laser scanners, the light emitted by the reader is rapidly varied in brightness with a data pattern and the photo diode receive circuitry is designed to detect only signals with the same modulated pattern. CCD readers also known as LED scannerseditCCD readers use an array of hundreds of tiny light sensors lined up in a row in the head of the reader. Each sensor measures the intensity of the light immediately in front of it. Each individual light sensor in the CCD reader is extremely small and because there are hundreds of sensors lined up in a row, a voltage pattern identical to the pattern in a bar code is generated in the reader by sequentially measuring the voltages across each sensor in the row. The important difference between a CCD reader and a pen or laser scanner is that the CCD reader is measuring emitted ambient light from the bar code whereas pen or laser scanners are measuring reflected light of a specific frequency originating from the scanner itself. Camera based readerseditTwo dimensional imaging scanners are a newer type of bar code reader. The quickest and most elegant way to scan a drivers license. Easily track patrons entering your establishment and use bouncer mode to automatically detect minors. They use a camera and image processing techniques to decode the bar code. Video camera readers use small video cameras with the same CCD technology as in a CCD bar code reader except that instead of having a single row of sensors, a video camera has hundreds of rows of sensors arranged in a two dimensional array so that they can generate an image. Large field of view readers use high resolution industrial cameras to capture multiple bar codes simultaneously. All the bar codes appearing in the photo are decoded instantly Image. ID patents and code creation tools or by use of plugins e. Barcodepedia used a flash application and some web cam for querying a database, have been realized options for resolving the given tasks. Omnidirectional barcode scannerseditOmnidirectional scanning uses series of straight or curved scanning lines of varying directions in the form of a starburst, a Lissajous pattern, or other multiangle arrangement are projected at the symbol and one or more of them will be able to cross all of the symbols bars and spaces, no matter what the orientation. 1 Almost all of them use a laser. Unlike the simpler single line laser scanners, they produce a pattern of beams in varying orientations allowing them to read barcodes presented to it at different angles. Most of them use a single rotating polygonal mirror and an arrangement of several fixed mirrors to generate their complex scan patterns. Omnidirectional scanners are most familiar through the horizontal scanners in supermarkets, where packages are slid over a glass or sapphire window. There are a range of different omnidirectional units available which can be used for differing scanning applications, ranging from retail type applications with the barcodes read only a few centimetres away from the scanner to industrial conveyor scanning where the unit can be a couple of metres away or more from the code. Omnidirectional scanners are also better at reading poorly printed, wrinkled, or even torn barcodes. Cell phone cameraseditWhile cell phone cameras without auto focus are not ideal for reading some common barcode formats, there are 2. D barcodes which are optimized for cell phones, as well as QR Codes Quick Response codes and Data Matrix codes which can be read quickly and accurately with or without auto focus. Cell phone cameras open up a number of applications for consumers. For example, Movies DVDVHS movie catalogs. Music CD catalogs play MP3 when scanned. Book catalogs and device. Groceries, nutrition information, making shopping lists when the last of an item is used, etc. Personal Property inventory for insurance and other purposesode scanned into personal finance software when entering. Later, scanned receipt images can then be automatically associated with the appropriate entries. Later, the bar codes can be used to rapidly weed out paper copies not required to be retained for tax or asset inventory purposes. If retailers put barcodes on receipts that allowed downloading an electronic copy or encoded the entire receipt in a 2. D barcode, consumers could easily import data into personal finance, property inventory, and grocery management software. Receipts scanned on a scanner could be automatically identified and associated with the appropriate entries in finance and property inventory software. Consumer tracking from the retailer perspective for example, loyalty card programs that track consumers purchases at the point of sale by having them scan a QR code. A number of enterprise applications using cell phones are appearing Access control for example, ticket validation at venues, inventory reporting for example, tracking deliveries, asset tracking for example, anti counterfeiting. 2SmartphoneseditSmartphones can be used in Googles mobile Android operating system via both their own Google Goggles application. Nokias Symbian operating system features a barcode scanner which can scan barcodes, while mbarcode is a barcode reader for the Maemo operating system. In the Apple i. OS, a barcode reader is not automatically included, but there are more than fifty free or paid apps available with both scanning capabilities and hard linking to URI. With Black. Berry devices, the App World application can natively scan barcodes. Windows Phone 8 is able to scan barcodes through the Bing search app. Housingedit. A large multifunction barcode scanner being used to monitor the transportation of packages of radioactive pharmaceuticals.