Barcode Recognition in Flash

As part of my new year, I’ve decided to start putting more code out there earlier. I have a tendency to build projects in private, trying to get things perfect before I reveal them publicly. The end result is that I have a lot of code gathering dust in the corners of my hard drive. No more. That’s why I’m going to post one of the mini-projects I’ve been working on for the last little while: a Flash-based barcode recognition library.

I know what you’re thinking: Why the heck would anyone want to build a Flash-based barcode recognition library? Why not try the demo yourself and see!

The idea is simple: allow use of a commodity webcam as a barcode reader, thus allowing users to efficiently input physical items into web-based applications. Using digital cameras as a cheap alternative to traditional barcode scanners isn’t an original idea - Delicious Library uses iSight to allow its users to input their CDs, DVDs, and other media into a personal media library. Unfortunately, that particular application is a heavy application that’s only available on the Mac - what I want to do is build a simple way to provide that same kind of functionality in platform independent web-based applications.

More here