In my previous post I left a hint on a new project I was working on which was this image:
After reading about Windows Live Barcode and seeing it was not available at barcode.ideas.live.com I decided to look around to see if there was something available for .NET CF to create an application to decode these images on a Windows Mobile device using the built in camera. Nothing was available except this JavaME implementation here. So I ported that code to C# and now we have QRCode Library for .NET Compact Framework.
What is a QR Code? Well, it is a two-dimensional barcode that should be decoded at high speeds. QR stands for ‘Quick Response’.
The image above was my test image (generated here) and here is the result running it on a Windows Mobile 5 device:
So my question was answered and it does work. Next test was testing with an image using the CameraCaptureDialog to see if the library can decode an image taken with a device camera. Here is the image:
And here is the result:
Although this was pretty exciting to be able to decode an image taken by the camera on the device (yes I think that’s exciting 🙂 it did take me about 5-7 tries before the image was actually decoded. It wasn’t until I changed the JPG Quality to ‘SuperFine’ was the image decoded. So IMO for the regular user I don’t think it’s ready for ‘prime time’. Now my camera is only 1.3 mega pixels but new devices with 3.0 mega pixel cameras are now out which should help improve the image quality and the decoding success rate (time to upgrade my device!).
Another exciting part was decoding the image was pretty fast after the change I made I discussed in my previous post.
So if you are interested in the project you can find all details here. It is open source and we have added the source to our SVN Repository (main page is not updated but you can browse the source code).
BTW … if you want to generate an QR Code using a web service check out Richard Jones post here.