Hello,
I’ve received a request from a member of academic staff to
provide a barcode scanning application of some sorts on a set of tablets
running Windows 8.1. Their intention is to add barcodes (probably QR codes) to
physical objects in a lab/classroom. On a basic level, they would like the
barcodes to hold a URL, linking students to supplementary content such as a
video tutorial or further reading. For example, a student would use the
tablet’s integrated camera to scan a QR code on a piece of equipment that links
them to a video tutorial on how to use it.
I have implemented something on a small scale (10 devices of
very similar hardware and OS configuration to this target area) for our library
staff using an external Bluetooth scanner (Opticon OPN-2006) but this
would neither be practical nor cost effective for the target area of ~300
tablets. Imagine trying to correctly pair those devices with a group of ~60
students!
What I’ve found so far:
• bcWebCam (http://www.bcwebcam.de/en/index.html)
– Not very slick and full licence is €98+VAT per device
• ZBar (http://zbar.sourceforge.net/)
– Fails to discover the camera on my test device (I’m yet to dig deeper or test on other hardware)
• OnBarcode (http://www.onbarcode.com/scanner/#howtostart)
– Geared towards developers to integrate with their own applications and doesn’t provide a simple way of acquiring the barcdoeimage
• Scandit (http://www.scandit.com/)
– Probably the most polished offering but not the simple solution I’m looking for. Also geared towards delivery as a Windows Store App which would be an added hurdle for delivery
Has anybody implemented something similar?
Can anybody recommend any good barcode/QR code scanning utilities that would use an integrated camera?
Note that this needs to be something easily deployed (not a Windows Store freebie/ad-riddled hobby app). Something simple to scan>beep>read a URL from a QR code and open it.
Regards,
Alex
