Importance

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Abstract

An efficient method and apparatus for determining the location and approximate orientation of a barcode on a substrate. The inventive method is preferably implemented by an omnidirectional barcode locator including an application specific integrated circuit that includes one or more field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs). The digit image is a one-bit (i.e., black/white) representation of a standard eight-bit grey scale video image produced by the CCD camera. The use of a one-bit digital video signal reduces the amount of mass storage memory required to store images of barcodes and facilitates the manipulation of the video signal by the application specific integrated circuit. The omnidirectional barcode locator processes, in real-time, a digital video signal defining a pixelized image of a conveyor carrying parcels through the field of view of a CCD camera. The omnidirectional barcode locator divides the video image into a plurality of cells and produces two output signals, a cell barcode indication signal and a cell barcode orientation signal, for each cell. A host computer responds to a 'true' cell barcode indication signal for a cell by storing the portion of the video image corresponding to the cell in a mass storage memory. The host computer also stores a representation of the cell barcode orientation signal for each cell in which the cell barcode indication signal is 'true.' The omnidirectional barcode locator thus allows the host computer to store only those cells of the video image that contain barcode data. The barcode data may then be provided to a barcode reader for further processing.

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First Claim