Visually significant QR codes: Image blending and statistical analysis

QR codes are widely used as a means of conveying textual information, such as emails, hyperlinks, or phone numbers, through images that are interpreted using a smartphone camera. The codes take up valuable space in print media. The random appearance of QR codes not only detracts from the production values of the advertisement in which they appear, but the codes are also visually insignificant in the sense that a human cannot discern the vendor, brand, or purpose of the code just by looking at it, without the aid of scanning software. Though neither the aesthetics nor the visual significance of the code matter for scanning purposes, they do matter for advertising layout and, more importantly, can provide valuable brand distinction. In this paper, we show how the visually significant QR codes may be obtained by image blending. Unlike various ad-hoc methods that have been proposed by others, our method leaves completely intact the error correction budget of the code. Our method allows images as diverse as corporate logos and family photographs to be embedded in the code in full color. We provide a detailed statistical analysis of the method to show the effect of blending on error rates in noisy environments.