The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Apr. 16, 2002
Filed:
May. 25, 1999
Yue Ma, West Windsor, NJ (US);
Junichi Kanai, East Windsor, NJ (US);
Abstract
Two embodiments of a method of decoding information stored in a two-dimensional barcode printed on a printed medium are introduced. Both embodiments provide an improved method of analyzing horizontal and vertical edge count arrays to identify the column and row centerlines therein to enable the subsequent reading of the binary data located at the intersection of each row centerline and column centerline. In the first embodiment, the centerlines are located by first locating each successive pair of peaks in the respective edge count array, where each peak must have a magnitude greater than a first predetermined value, and then locating a centerline in a valley region between each successive pair of peaks, each of the centerlines having a magnitude less than a second predetermined value. Preferably, each successive pair of peaks in the respective edge count array is separated by a third predetermined value. In addition, the first predetermined value is preferably reduced by a predetermined amount if a second peak within a pair of peaks in the respective edge count array is separated from a first peak by more than a fourth predetermined value, and the second peak is then re-identified using the reduced first predetermined value. The second embodiment alternately employs the method of the first embodiment or a prior art method to reduce the number of errors produced, using the prior art method first to locate the column centerlines and the method of the first embodiment first to locate the row centerlines.