Annular Barcodes

Abstract

In this publication1 we present a generic design for a novel annular barcode. On round media, circular or annular barcodes are more natural and preferable instead of traditional rectangular barcodes. Especially on round media with a distinctly convex or concave conic surface, an annular barcode is even more preferable than a full circle, because printing the barcode in the center of the media might be much more complicated or imprecise. Our generic annular barcode design supports different barcode and module sizes and therefore different data sizes. It includes different marker, synchronization, and data areas. For improved data robustness a data protocol and error correcting codes similar to them in QR codes are suggested. The feasibility of the design is shown by an implementation of an efficient and effective barcode decoder in C++ and a series of tests with distorted and noisy pictures of our annular barcodes.