Bug 1937 - Scan barcode with webcam
Summary: Scan barcode with webcam
Status: REOPENED
Alias: None
Product: Koha
Classification: Unclassified
Component: Cataloging (show other bugs)
Version: master
Hardware: PC All
: P3 enhancement (vote)
Assignee: Galen Charlton
QA Contact: Bugs List
URL:
Keywords:
Depends on:
Blocks:
 
Reported: 2008-03-13 05:00 UTC by Nicole C. Engard
Modified: 2022-08-22 00:37 UTC (History)
5 users (show)

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Description Chris Cormack 2010-05-21 00:36:20 UTC


---- Reported by nengard@gmail.com 2008-03-13 17:00:10 ----

Someone at a conference I was at suggested that Koha have a feature that allows for scanning barcodes with the webcam like they do with the Delicious Library app for the Mac. http://www.delicious-monster.com/



--- Bug imported by chris@bigballofwax.co.nz 2010-05-21 00:36 UTC  ---

This bug was previously known as _bug_ 1937 at http://bugs.koha.org/cgi-bin/bugzilla3/show_bug.cgi?id=1937

Actual time not defined. Setting to 0.0
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Comment 1 Katrin Fischer 2011-08-15 16:07:14 UTC
Hm, not sure. To me it sounds like something you would use an external app for.
Nicole, would it be ok to mark this WONTFIX?
Comment 2 Nicole C. Engard 2011-08-16 23:21:52 UTC
you'd want that app to work with Koha, it's an enhancement request - is it a bit deal if it stays open in case someone wants to work on it?
Comment 3 Martin Renvoize 2022-04-12 07:47:28 UTC
I think this is actually a great idea.. I see it working as a little barcode icon in search boxes that allow for barcode entry.. on touching the icon we open the camera (best on a mobile in my thinking) and allow one to scan barcodes in.
Comment 4 Martin Renvoize 2022-04-12 07:51:04 UTC
https://github.com/ericblade/quagga2 appears to be a pretty well respected and maintained JS library for doing this.
Comment 5 David Cook 2022-08-22 00:34:48 UTC
We did a demo with this for the Koha self checkout so that people in remote libraries could self-checkout using their phones.

My first version used https://github.com/zxing-js/library but we found results varied heavily between different devices. I got quite good at doing it with my web camera and my phone camera, but sometimes it wouldn't work that well, and a lot of test users struggled to get the phone camera to focus on the barcode well enough for the Javascript to capture and interpret the barcode. 

We later integrated with a commercial product called Scandit which was very effective, but it has a pay per use agreement. I think it leveraged server-side processing as well.

(At some point, it looks like browsers may have native barcode reading support: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Barcode_Detection_API)
Comment 6 David Cook 2022-08-22 00:37:00 UTC
If you're interested in this Martin, I'd be happy to share code and lessons learned. 

The library using the Scandit integration does about 60 uses per month. I can't remember the terms of the agreement but I think it's where you purchase X uses per month for Y amount, and then pay Z amount if you go over X usage.