News

We are pleased to announce a VIN (vehicle identification number) barcode reader for the iPhone 3GS model.

Although a VIN barcode is just a Code 39 barcode, a type which is supported by the existing version of the toolkit, it’s slightly long for reliable reading through the view finder. The narrow bars and spaces tend to blur into one another and the read rate is fairly poor. For this reason we have developed an add-on to the toolkit which specifically scans for a VIN barcode by examining the relative positions of the wide bars and wide spaces, and combining this information with known properties of a VIN barcode to determine the value.

You can download an evaluation copy of this from the following URL:

http://www.softeksoftware.co.uk/download/evaluation/iphone/bardecode_7_3_1f_iphone_vin.tar.gz

Notes:

1. The above version will only read VIN barcodes.
2. The tar ball contains an XCode project (iBardecode) that should get things started. There is a temporary license key in the project, but it will probably expire soon, so please contact sales@bardecode.com for a new key and substitute the value at line 28 of iBardecodeViewController.m.
3. This version only supports VIN barcodes in the same orientation as the text that appears on the view finder – we will soon support it either way up.
4. The error margin slider control allows you to balance speed and accuracy – a higher value will be faster but less accurate.
5. It is only possible to read VIN barcodes using the iPhone 3GS.
6. In the iBardecode project, if the toolkit fails to scan a VIN barcode in 20 attempts then it will save a copy of the view finder image to the camera roll. This can then be emailed to Softek Software for analysis.

Please contact sales@bardecode.com for pricing information.