Senior Project - BarNone

Webscan develops a variety of systems for ANSI compliant bar code verification, including optics, image processing, pattern recognition and real time embedded systems concepts. Webscan had not been involved in postal bar code verification, but had a possible interest in entering this area. In particular, they had an interest in the newer four-state Intelligent Mail bar codes. The goal of this project was the production of a library capable of processing these postal bar codes.

The completed project is a library capable of locating the bars and spaces in postal bar codes in an efficient manner. The library also contains the functionality to distinguish between two-state and four-state bar codes and to identify the type of each bar within the bar code. If the bar code is two-state, the bars are labeled long and short; if the bar code is four-state, the bars are labeled ascender, descender, tracking and full. The library is also able to decode both varieties of bar codes according to the USPS standard. Along with running efficiently, the library is designed to be able to function on embedded systems. The software was written in ANSI C++ and only used the C++ Standard Library.