2D barcode decoding

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Barcodes have been growing to pack higher data density. 2D barcodes can pack more data than older 1D codes. Many cellphones can decode barcodes as the are equipped with a camera good enough for the task.

There is a cool project that offers code for doing that with a variety of phones, including iPhone and Android.

Unfortunately it does not seem to work with my Nokia E71 phone (it has to be some kind of curse, as the built-in barcode software that came with the phone does not work either).

However I still can use the phone to take a picture of the codes I'm interested on to have them decoded on-line. You can try this form to decode a file with a picture of a barcode.

An alternative to using the cellphone for decoding the barcodes on-line (that can be expensive depending on your data plan) is to download those images to your PC and to use a simple script to get them decoded. I used curl tool for doing that as it has HTTP POST capabilities. It worked great.

Comments

Hiroshi Ikeda said…
Good to know folk!!!
As a iPhone user a have several apps for decoding these 2d data matrix but the built-in camera is a crap when focusing close objects. So all the apps become useless to me in such case. The good scenario would be a 3d data matrix printed on a wall but not the printed ones on envelopes, brochures, etc...
See you!!!
5:02 pm
misan said…
You can try this one. It's free.

It does not work with my phone not because of the crappy camera but because of lacking access to the captured image.
5:07 pm
Hiroshi Ikeda said…
sorry, 2d data matrix printed on a wall
5:08 pm
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