requested features

Requested Features and Other Improvements

Here is a list of features that we would like to add/implement. Please feel free to contribute code to tackle some of these issues.

Key Features:

• Decoders for symbologies UPC-E and EAN-13.
• Multi-resolution localization:
  The current localization parameters works best for QVGA resolution, and to provide real-time feedback on a mobile device, VGA resolution videos are subsampled to QVGA for localization purposes (decoding is still performed at VGA resolution, and is much faster).
  Localization is performed assuming a longer (e.g. UPC-A barcode), to reduce the rate of false positives (such as parallel lines of text, etc.), since we cannot assume a visually impaired user is pointing the camera accurately at a barcode. To detect shorter barcodes, such as UPC-E, it may be necessary to go back to full resolution for counting edges (maybe sacrifice some speed).
• Screenreader compatibility: The clients currently access text-to-speech directly to provide speech feedback. While the desktop client also provides the output as text in a shell window that a screenreader should pick up, the same is not true of DroidBLaDE. It needs to check for screenreader availability, and if one is available, dump the output on a view that the screenreader may then capture and play back at the user's preferred settings.
• iOS client: An iOS version of DroidBLaDE would serve more visually impaired users.
• Windows client: Should be rather straightforward other than figuring out direct audio card access to provide real-time audio feedback.
• Desktop clients should not need OpenCV: OpenCV is primarily used for input/output, which can be accomplished using other available and smaller libraries, such as ffmpeg.
• Ability to add your own barcodes: Should be simple to add a private database that the user can add to, and is searched before going online. It may be a good idea to add looked up products to a separate database (like caching) to increase the speed of product identification (and not rely on a continuous data connection) for products that the users may commonly be using BLaDE to identify.