Fast QR Code Detection in Arbitrarily Acquired Images

The detection of QR codes, a type of 2D barcode, as described in the literature consists merely in the determination of the boundaries of the symbol region in images obtained with the specific intent of highlighting the symbol. However, many important applications such as those related with accessibility technologies or robotics, depends on first detecting the presence of a barcode in an environment. We employ Viola-Jones rapid object detection framework to address the problem of finding QR codes in arbitrarily acquired images. This framework provides an efficient way to focus the detection process in promising regions of the image and a very fast feature calculation approach for pattern classification. An extensive study of variations in the parameters of the framework for detecting finder patterns, present in three corners of every QR code, was carried out. Detection accuracy superior to 90%, with controlled number of false positives, is achieved. We also propose a post-processing algorithm that aggregates the results of the first step and decides if the detected finder patterns are part of QR code symbols. This two-step processing is done in real time.