libdmtx

README-0.5.0.txt


README for libdmtx version 0.5.0 - April 13, 2008
-----------------------------------------------------------------

Version 0.5.0 brings libdmtx a big step closer toward earning
the "Production Ready" label.  As predicted, the major untested
changes in 0.4.0 required a stabilization period to work out the
kinks, but the scanning logic now appears more stable and better
equipped to handle mixed-quality input than any previous version.
This release also introduces a critical feature that many users
have been waiting for: Reed Solomon error correction!

With a big thanks to the authors of libfec (Forward Error
Correction library) and a patch submitted by Florian Kandzia,
libdmtx can reliably fix many barcode errors instead of simply
printing the dreaded "Rejected due to ECC validation" warning.
This feature directly improves both the success rates and runtime
performance of Data Matrix scans, and will make our software
immediately relevant to a number of organizations.

Other new features include:

  * Optimized scan grid pattern now handled within library
  * Better module color decisions (improving success rates)
  * library now returns pre-decoded regions -- giving choice
  * Ability to scan specific portions of an image
  * More consistent API between encoding and decoding
  * Faster scanning performance

At a project level, libdmtx continues to gain new users from
industry, academia, and the free software community.  The
libdmtx.org website now receives nearly 3 times the monthly
traffic compared to anything before the 2007 project freeze, and
the software has been used on a number of new platforms including
Windows, Macintosh, Solaris, and multiple mobile phones (YouTube
has some cool demos).

As always, please let us know if you find any bugs or have
trouble installing the software.  This version should be pretty
stable, but if it crashes or otherwise fails to scan clean
barcodes then we would like to address it quickly.  Thanks!