The Benefits of Using Automatic Image Sensing Barcode Scanner

A lot of modern enterprises are using barcode scanner software these days, reaping the benefits of the technology. Barcodes were invented back in and so were their scanners. However, barcodes took time to become successful. It was in the s when they were used for industrial prospects for the first time.

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Barcodes have their versatile usage in every industry and context like retail chains, manufacturing units, healthcare industry, and many more.

Barcode technology tracks assets efficiently and retrieves data instantly by just the scanning of the barcode. Several leading organizations such as Amazon are using barcode technology for its preciseness in inventory and asset tracking.

Barcode Scanners

Barcode scanners are optical scanners which read a printed barcode, decode its data and then transfer it to the connected computer system.

All barcode scanners contain a decoder circuitry that analyses the image of the barcode and data provided by the sensor and then transfers it to the main computer system to which the scanner is connected.

Types of Barcode Scanners

Barcode scanners are distinguished on the basis of technology they use to scan the barcode. Following are the main types of barcode scanners used:

1. Pen Type Scanner

It consists of a light source and photodiode to read a barcode. The tip of the pen is moved across the bars of barcode at a uniform speed.

2. Lazer Scanner

It is used in the same manner as a pen-type scanner but uses lazer as a light source for reading the barcode.

3. LED Scanner

It uses an array of hundreds of tiny light sources lined up in a row used to measure emitted ambient light from the barcode to read and decode it.

4. Camera-based Scanner

It works the same way as LED scanners but in a 2D array of light sources to generate an image. So, the barcode that appears in the image is decoded.

5. Omnidirectional Barcode Scanner

It uses a multi-angle arrangement of scanning lines to be projected at the barcode. They are mostly used in supermarkets.

6. Cell Camera

2D barcodes like QR codes and data matrix codes are scanned for the camera of a smartphone.

Working of Barcode Scanners

Barcodes are read over dashes and dots which are converted to numbers. With scanner technology scanning, reading and decoding of barcodes have become easy with a reading of black and white zebra lines rapidly.

The scanned barcodes are fetched to the scanner output or connected computer device or system to easily identify a product's information for the database of the organization.

Following are the steps involved in the scanning, reading, and decoding of a barcode:

• Scanning through a laser light or LED light onto the barcode.
• The light reflects off the barcode to a photoelectric cell (an electronic component to detect light). The black areas reflect small amounts of light and the white lines reflect the major portion of light.
• On moving the scanner across the barcode in uniform speed, the photoelectric cell generates an on-off pulse pattern that communicates with the white and black stripes on the barcode.
• The scanner's electronic circuit converts the pulses into zeroes and ones (binary numbers) which then are sent to the connected computer system.

Barcode Scanner Software

Barcode scanner software captures the barcode data and transfers it to the connected computer system. It is a featured software application with image and data capturing to boost the work efficiency and work along with the existing asset management software.

Capability of Barcode Scanner Software

Also Read: RFID vs Barcodes: Which One is Better for Asset Tracking?

A. Capture, Read, and Deliver

• Scan barcode
• Deliver data to the database
• Collect associated data
• Auto-update to servers
• Auto-insert scans
• Fully integrated

B. Device Flexibility

• Barcode scanner app works with smartphones, tablets, scan sleds, android mobile computers.
• Access in-built camera, image, and Bluetooth.

C. No-Code Solution

• No coding configuring solutions required directly to select from the menu.
• Develop enhance solutions.

D. Quick Barcode Scanning

• Quick and accurate scanning of barcodes with the device camera.

E. Scans in Real-Time

• Scanned barcode to store in a database online or auto-updated all-round from the Cloud and application.

F. Requires Custom Forms

• Ask multiple-choice, drop-down, voice-to-text, or custom questions with each scan.

G. Auto-Update Feature

• Scans are automatically updated on the barcode scanner with a cloud app facility in every few seconds.

H. Photos, GPS & Signatures

• Take pictures, record GPS location, and capture signatures with the barcode scanner app.

Benefits of Barcode Scanner and Software

1. Improved Efficiency

Barcode scanner software allows operating more accurately and reading the data and information at a quick rate. The scanner technology makes the operation and tracking quick and accurate.

2. Reduced Errors

The clarity in data and information entry through scanner technology boosts the organization business and heritage with reduced errors.

3. Cost-Efficient

The accurate data transfer to the system allows holding the efficiency of all the ongoing processes in the company. When everything goes smooth and error-free, it saves a lot of money that is caused due to mistakes, problems, or human error.

4. Saves Time

The barcode scanner software saves a lot of time engaged in arrangement and quantity and quality analysis of the assets, inventory, and products. With scanner technology, it is very efficient compared to the same task of about 4 hours of 5 employees together.

5. Increased Productivity

The scanner technology helps to increase and boost productivity by updating inventory levels or asset movement digitally. The software has its significant streamlined benefits to reduce app training time as well.

6. Business Intelligence

The software makes it easier to record and maintain data for every update regarding transactions or operations, digitally and track them.

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Also Read : How Useful is It to Barcode Kitchen Equipment in a Restaurant?

Conclusion

The barcode scanner software can be implemented for any business, institution, or service provider. The software is known to improve operations and resolve business issues. Moreover, the barcode scanner app can manage security, attendance, access control, asset tracking in institutions and organizations.

All this can be achieved through barcode scanners. They have become mobile and laser-operated nowadays. Barcode scanning is an important part of asset tracking and inventory management. It improves accuracy, reduces human errors, and enhances inventory management discipline.

Barcode scanning in automation and robotics is substantially different from scanning with smart mobile devices. These automated systems need to scan barcodes in intensive applications where it is vital that every image taken is processed, and all the barcodes in each image are found and decoded. Furthermore, this processing must be completed at very high speeds. The main challenge to automate barcode scanning is that the application requirements often necessitate the use of high-resolution cameras with a large angle of view, wide enough to capture either whole pallets or many barcodes at once. This makes it even more challenging to find every barcode and process the huge image files in a timely manner.

This paper reviews the key problems in scanning these large image files, the typical barcode label problems, and environmental factors that affect scanning success. We then review the solutions that are built into the Viziotix scanning library to maximize scan success rates in automation.

A number of barcode scanning software SDKs are available to provide scanning solutions for camera-enabled systems. Very few of these were developed specifically for automated scanning, and their levels of performance vary in specific applications.

The key performance metric for automated barcode scanning is the scan success rate. This may be defined as the number of successful scans divided by the total number of barcodes in an image. Maximizing the Scan Success Rate is the key to building successful automated products and systems. In tests against other software barcode scanner libraries and against barcode scanning hardware, Viziotix is able to provide 5%–20% higher scan success rates and up to 10 times faster scanning.

This white paper explains the key scanning problems seen in automated barcode scanning and reviews the technical solutions provided by Viziotix to ensure the highest scan success rates and fastest scan times.

Barcode scanning by robots, fixed cameras, and other automated solutions is providing new opportunities to automate manual processes. Before introducing a new automated scanning solution, it is important that the barcode scan success rate meets the requirements for that solution. Scan success rates are measured on a data-set of images captured by the actual cameras used in a particular application. Initial measures of scan success rates vary greatly because of the variety of applications and their particular challenges. For instance, in the early stages of a solution’s development, image data sets may include images that do not include all or parts of a barcode or have problems with blur or lighting that make barcodes impossible to scan. For these reasons, scan success rates are normally significantly less than 100% in early solution development. The challenge for barcode software decoders is to maximize the scan success rate on all images where the barcode is present by using a number of techniques to overcome any camera, image, environmental or barcode label issues.

Not all scanning software provides the same results. The performance of scanning software libraries varies depending on the techniques used to recover information from difficult images. Most commercially available software libraries are designed to scan barcodes on handheld smart-devices (smartphones) with good image quality and a steady stream of images of the same barcode to allow multiple attempts to scan. Automated solutions require libraries designed to be scanned by automated systems that can extract data from every image. The key differences between manual scanning and automated scanning are highlighted below:

Automated scanning is often based on obtaining a successful scan from a single imperfect image. As such, complex algorithms must be used to compensate for image problems and recover all the data. This has to be balanced against the processing time so that the scan time is fast enough for the system to be ready for the next scan. It is important to ensure that the software library used for an automated solution has been designed for this usage.

Every percentage point counts in applications for inventory scanning. Each percent of scan failures by a robotic inventory system results in 180 pallets not being spotted and tallied in a warehouse with 18,000 pallet locations. It might take 30 minutes of physical labor to locate and repair these “lost” pallets. According to average labor costs, this may translate to warehousing expenses of $15 for each failed scan or $2,700 for 180 pallets.

In data sets analyzed by Viziotix , between 5% and 20% of codes in images where a successful scan should be possible were not scanned.

Smart-Findr, a cutting-edge finder algorithm, powers the Viziotix SDK for fully automated scanning. To find every barcode in the image, a milliseconds-long search of large image files is conducted. In automated systems barcodes are often not centered in the image. In order to find the barcodes and achieve the optimum total scan speeds, the Viziotix Smart-Findr algorithm equally and thoroughly examines the whole image area. This guarantees that all the codes are found, even in edge location cases. In the example below, Viziotix Smart-Findr decodes a code in the center in 19 milliseconds and a code towards the edge in 20 milliseconds. Other measured SDKs either fail to detect the edge code or find it 5x or 10x slower than the centered code.

When the Smart-Findr process is complete, all the barcodes in an image are located. Then, the Maxi-Scan algorithm is applied to decode all the barcodes found. Maxi-Scan can decode any number of barcodes in an image and output all the data. For maximum efficiency in industrial processes, it is often necessary to decode all the barcodes at once.

Nano-Scan sub-pixel resolution doubles the maximum scanning distance compared to other scanning software. This increases the probability of a successful scan in any application where resolution is limited or the distance varies during scanning (such as warehouse inventory drones or robot scanning).

Motion blur is visible when a camera and item are moving in parallel relative to each other. Like resolution constraints, excessive blur can make it challenging to resolve all the bars. Nano-Scan maximizes scan success rates by recovering the bars and allowing the decoding of even very blurred images.  

Ambient or embedded lighting may be used by automation solutions depending on the application and environment. Controlled, embedded lighting may offer some advantages, but it is often not able to illuminate all  areas of the image evenly (images may be bright in the center but dark at the edges) and may cause direct glare off any reflective surfaces.

The Viziotix decoder makes use of specialized filters to locate barcodes in visually dark images, to control uneven lighting, and overcome glare. This makes it possible for Viziotix software to scan images where the environmental or embedded lighting is low or uneven. With these filters, barcodes partially hidden by glare are found and decoded.

Using colors other than black in the barcode or background reduces the contrast between the bars and spaces. Contrast is also reduced by printer ink or ribbon problems. The same suite of Viziotix algorithms that overcome lighting issues are also used to overcome low print contrast. Barcode contrasts below 25% can be easily scanned with these techniques. 

Speed of decode is a critical metric in inventory scanning due to the high volume of scans and large camera image resolutions needed for large area scans (such as for whole pallets). The Viziotix Smart-Finder and the sum of all the decode processes are designed to be so efficient that clients have reported that the time to scan the same images was reduced by a factor of ten compared to other solutions. This is particularly important for high resolution images with multiple barcodes. In the example image below, a 13MP image of a pallet is scanned, and all 18 barcodes are found and decoded in just 83ms.

The above Viziotix software scanning technologies combine to offer measurable benefits to automate barcode scanning solutions:

• The Viziotix Smart-Findr approach is adapted for scanning the whole image and not just the center. Maxi-Scan then ensures that all the barcodes in the image are decoded.
• Nano-Scan Sub-pixel resolution works down to 0.7 pixels per bar to compensate for motion and camera blur, and substantially increases the scanning distances.
• Faster Scan Rate. Clients achieved scan times up to 10 times faster than previous solutions on the same hardware.
• A number of other techniques are used to compensate for lighting, damage and printing issues to recover as much data as possible from problem images and barcodes.

The highest scan success rates are made possible by the combination of this automation scanning technology. These cutting-edge methods for scanning single images in automation solutions result in scan success rates that are 5-20% greater than with previous scanning solutions.

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