We take great pride in the fact that LEADTOOLS is truly a comprehensive imaging SDK. We developed LEADTOOLS with the mindset that we want it to be a one-stop-shop for imaging. There are many applications, especially in the document imaging world, where technologies intersect and you may find the need to piecemeal multiple SDKs together. For example, Scanning + Document Cleanup + OCR, OMR + Forms Recognition + OCR, or OCR + PDF. How about something a little less common, like OCR + Barcode?

This post is part of our 2017 Developer App Series, which showcases apps created by our Support Agents over the course of eight weeks. These apps are intended to be larger, more thoughtful apps with highly practical purposes in mind, as opposed to a basic "how to" for a feature.

App Description

This project from Faris will allow the user to generate a readable QR Code using the LEADTOOLS Barcode SDK alongside the LEADTOOLS Annotations SDK to add a picture or logo inside the barcode while still keeping the barcode readable.

Our latest white paper contains a wealth of information on selecting the right barcode for your application. There are an abundance of barcode types and sub-types, so choosing correctly from the outset can have a profound impact on your application's entire development life cycle. Common problems could be using a barcode that doesn't hold enough information, is too rigid for evolutions in your application, takes up too much physical space, fails to read when damaged, and so on.

After an introduction into different types of barcodes and their uses, this white paper then helps navigate implementing them into your application. Not all barcode SDKs are created equal, and we dive into the many advantages — both for the developer and eventual end-user — of trusting LEADTOOLS in your application. We hope you enjoy the read!

I heard some exciting news from engineering today in regards to our WinRT barcode engine. Just over a month has passed since we released the WinRT SDK, and our hardworking document imaging experts have already revamped the barcode recognition algorithm in several key ways:

• Enhanced the barcode engine to produce optimum results in pictures taken from mobile devices
• New image preprocessing that resolves extreme shadows, lighting and 3D perspective skewing in images capture from cameras
• Faster recognition when reading barcodes from a video stream
• Enhanced internal binarization for color images and videos

All of these add up to superior accuracy and speed to what was already an outstanding product! To be more precise, the new algorithm is presented as a setting which means this has no impact on the previous algorithm if you are still using our barcode engine on scanned documents. These updates, as well as a free demo for the Windows Store, should be available shortly after the holidays!