Barcode reading using picture taken using mobile phone camera

Question

How do we do programmatic reading of a barcode that is captured using a mobile phone camera? For example, how do that using iPhone or Android or Java ME? Do we need separate hardware to read bar code or can we do image manipulation?

Answer 1

Google has made this INCREDIBLY simple with their Zebra Crossing libraries. They have support for doing scanning via images on the following platforms:

• J2SE
• Android

and others have ported to:

• J2ME
• CSharp
• CPP
• Rim
• iPhone
• Bug

As another poster already mentioned, on Android you could also use an Intent to call Barcode Reader with something like:

public Button.OnClickListener mScan = new Button.OnClickListener() {
    public void onClick(View v) {
        Intent intent = new Intent("com.google.zxing.client.android.SCAN");
        intent.putExtra("SCAN_MODE", "ONE_D_MODE");
        startActivityForResult(intent, 0);
    }
};

public void onActivityResult(int requestCode, int resultCode, Intent intent) {
    if (requestCode == 0) {
        if (resultCode == RESULT_OK) {
            String contents = intent.getStringExtra("SCAN_RESULT");
            String format = intent.getStringExtra("SCAN_RESULT_FORMAT");
            // Handle successful scan
        } else if (resultCode == RESULT_CANCELED) {
            // Handle cancel
        }
    }
}