A simple and efficient approach to barcode localization

In this paper, we propose a simple and efficient approach to localizing the barcode regions in an image. We first apply the multichannel Gabor filtering technique to extract eight directional texture features. We then apply a randomized hierarchical search strategy to quickly find a sufficient number of pairs of line segments, which have high frequency and high similarity measures. We finally employ the histogram analysis technique on the start and end points of each qualified pair of line segments to localize the barcode regions. Our extensive experimental results show that the proposed scheme outperforms the two peer systems and can successfully localize the barcode regions in an image with a precision of 96% and a recall of 86%. In addition, the proposed system can be easily ported to a cell phone to improve the ShopTalk system to aid the blind to successfully retrieve common grocery products.