How To Read A Barcode From An Image In Java

Overview

Goal:
Create a command line sample program for reading different types of barcodes using Java, including damaged barcodes and low quality images.

Requirements:

Barcode Xpress Java SDK (download free trial here)
Oracle Java SE 5.0 and up
Oracle Java JDK 1.8 or above
Development IDE (in this example, Eclipse Java Oxygen is used)

Programming Skill:
Java Intermediate Level

Need to recognize barcodes from an image file in your Java application? In this project, we’ll walk through how to do this with a powerful barcode library for Java, Barcode Xpress.

Setting Up

If you’re already an experienced Java developer and know how to setup your development environment, feel free to skip this section.

Start by downloading a trial version of the Accusoft Barcode Xpress Java SDK. Within your Accusoft Barcode Xpress Java SDK will be the file barsdk5.jar. Expand that either with your favorite unzip program or if your java environment is already set up, just run:

jar -xf barsdk5.jar

Along with some code samples, there will also be the file tasbar5.jar. This contains the libraries that are needed to run this sample.

Depending on your development environment, you’ll want to add this jar file to your Java Build Path. Since Eclipse is being used for this sample, right click on your Java project and select Properties, then “Java Build Path”, and the “Libraries” tab.

It’s useful to add in the jar files into a common library, so in this case we’ll add a folder called “lib” into the development directory and place the tasbar5.jar file there so it can be included with whatever code repository system is being used. Then to reference this file, click “Add External JARs”, navigate to the lib directory, and select tasbar5.jar. Now the various Java objects we’ll need for our code can be accessed.

Here is the source code for the application we’re demoing in this article:

package com.accusoft.projects; import java.awt.image.BufferedImage; import java.io.*; import javax.imageio.ImageIO; import tasman.bars.*; /* * SimpleBarCodeScanner * * 20171101 – Welcome to Fall * * This program accepts command line arguments. * Argument 1 (integer value): sets the type of 1-dimensional * barcode to be read. * Arguments 2 and on: File names of types supported by the * BufferedImage objects. * * This program reads through each file for the barcode type, stores * read barcode values in an array of Barcode objects, and * displays them on the command line. * * This program also includes sample code that demonstrates how to * return an array of Barcode objects which can then be parsed * however the developer chooses. * * */ public class SimpleBarCodeScanner { public static void main(String[] args) { // TODO Auto-generated method stub //the type of bar code to scan for, default is 1 int barcodeType = 1; String fileName = null; /* * Args[0] – The barcode type to scan * Args[1…] – The filename to be read. Supported file * are supported by the BufferedImage object. */ if(args.length == 0) { System.out.println(“There are no arguments.”); } else { /* The first argument is going to set the kind of bar code we’re scanning file. Make sure we’re given a number as our first argument – otherwise throw an exception error and set barcodeType to 1. * */ try { barcodeType = Integer.parseInt(args[0]); } catch (NumberFormatException e) { barcodeType = 1; System.out.println(“First argument should be an integer.”); } for(int i=1; i < args.length; i++) { //for each file referenced, scan it for the bar codes in question fileName = args[i]; System.out.println(“File name to be scanned: “+args[i]); BarCode[] scannedBars = null; scannedBars = GetScanBarCodeFile(barcodeType, fileName); //if we have a bar code in the file, return true //else return false if ( scannedBars.length == 0 ) { System.out.println( “No barcode found.” ); } else { for ( int j = 0; j < scannedBars.length; j++ ) System.out.println( “Value of BarCode “+j+”: “ +scannedBars[ j ].getString() ); } } } } /* * ScanBarCodeFile * * Inputs: BarCodeType as an Integer, file name as String * Outputs: If bar codes are detected, return True. Else return False. * If bar codes are detected in the file, display on the command line some of the attributes. */ public static Boolean ScanBarCodeFile(int currentBarCodeType, String currentFileName) { //Read the image from the provided file name BufferedImage myImage = null; try { myImage = ImageIO.read( new File( currentFileName )); } catch ( IOException ex ) { System.out.println( “Exception: ” + ex ); return false; } // 1: Create BarReader for specified image. BarReader barcodeXpress1 = new BarReader( myImage ); // 2: Create a ReadOptions. ReadOptions options = new ReadOptions(); // 3: Read left to right. options.readEast = true; //setting for the types of bar codes we can read //Default: Code-39 bar codes //1. Code-39 barcodes //2. Code-128 barcodes //3. EAN-13 barcodes switch(currentBarCodeType) { case 1: options.code39 = true; break; case 2: options.code128 = true; break; case 3: options.codeEAN13 = true; break; default: options.code39 = true; break; } //scan the file for barcodes and store them into the scannedBars array BarCode[] scannedBars = barcodeXpress1.readBars( options ); System.out.println(“File name scanned: “+currentFileName+”.”); //if no barcodes are found, return false if ( scannedBars.length == 0 ) { return false; } //if one or more barcodes are found, print them out and return true else { for ( int i = 0; i < scannedBars.length; i++ ) System.out.println( “Value of BarCode “+i+”: “+scannedBars[ i ].getString() ); return true; } }//end Boolean… /* * Scan File * * Inputs: BarCodeType as an Integer, file name as String * Outputs: Array of BarCode objects * If bar codes are detected in the file, display on the command line some of the attributes. * //setting for the types of bar codes we can read */ public static BarCode[] GetScanBarCodeFile(int currentBarCodeType, String currentFileName) { //Read the image from the provided file name BufferedImage myImage = null; try { myImage = ImageIO.read( new File( currentFileName )); } catch ( IOException ex ) { System.out.println( “Exception: ” + ex ); return null; } // 1: Create BarReader for specified image. BarReader barcodeXpress1 = new BarReader( myImage ); // 2: Create a ReadOptions. ReadOptions options = new ReadOptions(); // 3: Read left to right. options.readEast = true; /* * * Setting for the types of bar codes we can read * *Default: Code-39 bar codes *1. Code-39 barcodes *2. Code-128 barcodes *3. EAN-13 barcodes */ switch(currentBarCodeType) { case 1: options.code39 = true; break; case 2: options.code128 = true; break; case 3: options.codeEAN13 = true; break; default: options.code39 = true; break; } //scan the file for barcodes and store them into the scannedBars array BarCode[] scannedBars = barcodeXpress1.readBars( options ); return scannedBars; }//end Boolean… }//end class

Scanning the First Barcode

For our code to work, let’s go over how to import an image file into Java, how to set the options for what kind of barcodes to scan for, and then how to scan the file itself.

Here’s a sample bar code to be read.

As we can see – it’s not perfect. Looks like the paper was a little off on one side, there’s some pixelation in the scanning. Maybe the scanner was nudged during the process. sam
Our SimpleBarCodeScanner program works via the command line. The first argument will be the type of barcode we’re scanning – we’ll pick Code39 as our default barcode to scan for. So a typical execution of this program will look like this (assuming that your tasbar5.jar is in the /lib directory, and you execute the program from your compiled /bin directory):

java -cp ..libtasbar5.jar;. com.accusoft.projects.SimpleBarCodeScanner argument1 argument2

Let’s run it, see what the results are, and then step through our program code to explain what’s going on.

Looking At the Process

We’ll skip over the items in the Main function – all we’re really doing there is accepting the arguments, and as long as they’re valid, we pass it onto the ScanBarCodeFile function via the following command:

ScanBarCodeFile(barcodeType, fileName)

This function takes an integer as the barcodeType. Barcode Xpress can handle several different types of barcodes (for a list of supported barcodes, please review the documentation at http://help.accusoft.com/BarcodeXpress/v12.0/dotnet/webframe.html#Supported_Barcode_Types.html ), but for this example we’re just going to focus on one dimensional barcodes of the Code39, Code128, and CodeEAN13 standard.

A complete copy of the source code is available above – we’ll just highlight some items to go through what it’s going.

public static Boolean ScanBarCodeFile(int currentBarCodeType, String currentFileName) { //Read the image from the provided file name BufferedImage myImage = null; try { myImage = ImageIO.read( new File( currentFileName )); //System.out.println(“File “+currentFileName+” was read.”); } catch ( IOException ex ) { System.out.println( “Exception: ” + ex ); return false; }

When we start, our function is going to read in the image file we’ve specified. The Java object BufferedImage can input JPEG, PNG, GIF, and BMP formats, so we’ll stick with png files in our example.

Once the BufferedImage object has been loaded, let’s load it into the Barcode Xpress object BarReader:

BarReader barcodeXpress1 = new BarReader( myImage );

There are plenty of options to set in our BarReader object, and to do that, we’ll load them up into a Readoptions object, then set it to read the barcodes from left to right:

ReadOptions options = new ReadOptions(); options.readEast = true;

Since we just want to scan in specific types of barcodes as we run the function, we can specify that by setting that in our options object:

switch(currentBarCodeType) { case 1: options.code39 = true; break; case 2: options.code128 = true; case 3: options.codeEAN13 = true; default: options.code39 = true; break; }

In this case, we select 1 as our barcode type, so it defaulted to the Code39 standard. To actually scan the image based on the options we’ve set up, just set our Barcode Xpress object to read them from the BufferedImage object, and store the results in an array of Barcode objects. This way if there’s more than one barcode in a document, we’ll find them all:

//scan the file for barcodes and store them into the scannedBars array BarCode[] scannedBars = barcodeXpress1.readBars( options );

And here’s our value displayed:

System.out.println( “Value of BarCode “+i+”: “+scannedBars[ i ].getString() );

More Options

Only Scanning A Specific Type Of Barcode

That works just fine for a simple demonstration – one barcode inside of one file. Let’s increase the complexity a bit. What if we have an image with different kinds of barcodes within it, but we only care about one of them?

java -cp ..libtasbar5.jar;. com.accusoft.projects.SimpleBarCodeScanner 1 Barcode_Code39_003.png

Not a problem – Barcode Xpress detects the barcode we’re interested, and ignores the other.

Scanning Multiple & Misaligned Barcodes

Because of the way our code is situated, we can scan multiple barcodes in one shot, like in this image:

Barcode Xpress is capable of scanning 1,000 documents a minute – so one image file with a few barcodes in it isn’t a problem.

Also notice that the orientation of the image isn’t an issue – some of them are at an angle, so we don’t have to worry about whether the image is perfectly vertical or that everything is lined up. Just scan, get the data, and move on.

Switching Types Of Barcodes

We can also shift between different kinds of barcodes on the fly. In an image that has both EAN-13 and Code39 standards, we can flip between scanning for one and the other by changing the command line switch:

We’ll start with Code39 by setting the first command line argument to “1”, then flip right back into EAN-13 by setting the command line argument to “3”

Rather than worrying that you’ll get more information than you need – you can pick and choose for your needs.

Integrating Into Your Program

If you’re looking to implement this code in your project, the following function will provide the data you require. GetScanBarCodeFile works the same as our ScanBarCodeFile above – only instead of displaying the barcode values on the console, it returns an array of BarCode objects so you can extract the data yourself. The function can be called by:

BarCode[] scannedBars = null; scannedBars = GetScanBarCodeFile(barcodeType, fileName);

Here’s a copy of the GetScanBarCodeFile function:

/* * GetScanBarCodeFile * * Inputs: BarCodeType as an Integer, file name as String * Outputs: Array of BarCode objects * If barcodes are detected in the file, display on the command line some of the attributes. */ public static BarCode[] GetScanBarCodeFile(int currentBarCodeType, String currentFileName) { //Read the image from the provided file name BufferedImage myImage = null; try { myImage = ImageIO.read( new File( currentFileName )); } catch ( IOException ex ) { System.out.println( “Exception: ” + ex ); return null; } BarReader barcodeXpress1 = new BarReader( myImage ); ReadOptions options = new ReadOptions(); options.readEast = true; //setting for the types of bar codes we can read //Default: Code-39 bar codes //1. Code-39 barcodes //2. Code-128 barcodes //3. EAN-13 barcodes switch(currentBarCodeType) { case 1: options.code39 = true; break; case 2: options.code128 = true; break; case 3: options.codeEAN13 = true; break; default: options.code39 = true; break; } //scan the file for barcodes and store them into the scannedBars array BarCode[] scannedBars = barcodeXpress1.readBars( options ); return scannedBars; }//end Boolean…

Ready to try it out? Check out Accusoft Barcode Xpress for more details or to download an evaluation copy.

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How To Read A Barcode From An Image In Java

Overview

Setting Up

Scanning the First Barcode

Looking At the Process

More Options

Integrating Into Your Program