Recognize a Barcode

Once your image has been acquired and pre-image processing has been performed to recognize the barcode on the image, the following properties must first be set:

Checks Before Barcode Recognition

If possible, the following properties/methods should be set/called before the detection process is started:

BarcodeInkColor – The default barcode color is black.
BarcodeOrientation – The default barcode orientation is BC_OrientationBoth.
SetBarcodeReaderType – Adds the type of barcodes to the list of types you want to detect. Calling this method with BC_StyleUnknown value clears the list and sets the default value: search for all 1D barcodes.
See the BarcodeTypes property for specific identification of barcode types that must be explicitly set to be recognized, and how to speed up barcode detection for known barcode types.

If the barcode image quality is poor (i.e. less than 300 dpi), set the BarcodeTypes property to the specific barcode type in order to obtain accurate results.

MaxBarcodes – Sets the maximum number of barcodes that will be detected. The default is 100.
If you know how many barcodes you expect to find, set the MaxBarcodes to that value, and Barcode Xpress will stop looking once that number is found.

Once these properties are set, you are ready to recognize the barcode on the image.

Barcode Xpress detects all barcodes in an image and gives you complete details about them.

If you know where on the image the barcodes reside, setting the ReaderAreaHeight, ReaderAreaWidth, ReaderAreaX and ReaderAreaY values to define a smaller rectangular area on your image will speed up processing. By default these values are set to 0 which tells Barcode Xpress to search the entire image automatically.

Supported Barcodes for Recognition

Barcodes supported for recognition are listed in the Overview. The edition you have enabled will determine exact barcodes.

Use the following methods and properties to recognize the barcode.

Methods

Method	Description
AnalyzehDib	Detects a barcode within the given DIB for a 32-bit environment.
AnalyzehDib64	Detects a barcode within the given DIB for a 64-bit environment.
AnalyzeIPicture	Detects a barcode within the given Picture.
GetBarcodeReaderType	Returns barcode type at the specified index value from barcode types list to search for in recognition.
GetBarcodeReaderTypesCount	Returns number of barcode types to search for in recognition.
SetBarcodeReaderType	Sets barcode type to search for in recognition.

Properties

Property	Description
AdditionalReadingPass	Gets and sets a value which determines if an additional processing pass will be performed on a scaled (reduced) version of the original image.
BarcodeInkColor	Gets and sets the ink color of barcodes to search for in recognition.
BarcodeOrientation	Gets and sets the orientation of barcodes to search for in recognition.
MaxBarcodes	Gets and sets the maximum number of barcodes to recognize.
Picture	Gets and sets a bitmap for use in barcode recognition.
ReaderAreaHeight	Gets and sets the height of the area for the recognition engine to analyze.
ReaderAreaWidth	Gets and sets the width of the area for the recognition engine to analyze.
ReaderAreaX	Gets and sets the x coordinate of the area for the recognition engine to analyze.
ReaderAreaY	Gets and sets the y coordinate of the area for the recognition engine to analyze.
GrayscaleProcessing	Gets and sets a value which determines if grayscale processing will be performed on images that are 8bpp or 24bpp.

See the Overview topic for code examples on recognizing barcodes.

See the Acquire an Image for Barcode Xpress for more code examples.

To obtain the results after analyzing the barcode on an image, See the Access Results topic.