Getting Started with Android

Requirements

Operating systems:
- Supported OS: Android 5 or higher (Android 7 or higher recommended).
- Supported ABI: armeabi-v7a, arm64-v8a, x86 and x86_64.
Environment: Android Studio 3.4+.

Installation

You can download the Dynamsoft Barcode Reader (DBR) SDK from the Dynamsoft website if you don’t have the SDK installed yet.

After unzipping, the root directory of the DBR installation package is DynamsoftBarcodeReader (the [INSTALLATION FOLDER]). You can find the following two aar files under the [INSTALLATION FOLDER]\Lib directory:

File	Description
`DynamsoftBarcodeReaderAndroid.aar`	The Barcode Reader library, including all barcode decoding related algorithms and APIs.
`DynamsoftCameraEnhancerAndroid.aar`	The Camera Enhancer library, including camera control APIs and frame preprocessing algorithm.

Build Your First Application

In this section, let’s see how to create a HelloWorld app for reading barcodes from camera video input.

Note:

Android Studio 4.2 is used here in this guide.

You can get the source code of the Helloword app here.

Create a New Project

Open Android Studio, select File > New > New Project.
Choose the correct template for your project. In this sample, we use Empty Activity.
When prompted, choose your app name ‘HelloWorld’ and set the Save location, Language, and Minimum SDK (we use 21 here).

Note: With minSdkVersion set to 21, your app is compatible with more than 94.1% of devices on the Google Play Store (last update: March 2021).

Include the Library

There are two ways to include the SDK into your project - local binary dependency and remote binary dependency.

Local Binary Dependency

Copy the file [INSTALLATION FOLDER]\Lib\DynamsoftBarcodeReaderAndroid.aar and [INSTALLATION FOLDER]\Lib\DynamsoftCameraEnhancerAndroid.aar to the target directory HelloWorld\app\libs

Open the file HelloWorld\app\build.gradle and add reference in the dependencies:

 dependencies {
     implementation fileTree(dir: 'libs', include: ['*.aar'])
 }

Click Sync Now. After the synchronization completes, the SDK is added to the project.

Import the package in the file MainActivity.java

import com.dynamsoft.dbr.*;
import com.dynamsoft.dce.*;

Remote Binary Dependency

Open the file HelloWorld\app\build.gradle and add the remote repository:

 repositories {
      maven {
         url "https://download2.dynamsoft.com/maven/dbr/aar"
      }
      maven {
         url "https://download2.dynamsoft.com/maven/dce/aar"
      }
 }

Add reference in the dependencies:

dependencies {
   implementation 'com.dynamsoft:dynamsoftbarcodereader:{version-number}@aar'
   implementation 'com.dynamsoft:dynamsoftcameraenhancer:{version-number}@aar'
}

Note:

Please replace {version-number} with the correct version number.

Click Sync Now. After the synchronization completes, the SDK is added to the project.

Import the package in the file MainActivity.java

import com.dynamsoft.dbr.*;
import com.dynamsoft.dce.*;

Initialize Camera Module

Create an instance of Camera Enhancer.

CameraEnhancer mCameraEnhancer;
mCameraEnhancer = new CameraEnhancer(MainActivity.this);

In the Project window, open app > res > layout > activity_main.xml and create a DCE camera view section under the root node.

<com.dynamsoft.dce.DCECameraView
   android:id="@+id/cameraView"
   android:layout_width="match_parent"
   android:layout_height="match_parent"
   tools:layout_editor_absoluteX="25dp"
   tools:layout_editor_absoluteY="0dp" />

Initialize the camera view and bind to the Camera Enhancer object.

 DCECameraView mCameraView;

 mCameraView = findViewById(R.id.cameraView);
 mCameraEnhancer.setCameraView(cameraView);

Initialize Barcode Reader

Create an instance of Dynamsoft Barcode Reader.

BarcodeReader reader;
reader = new BarcodeReader();

Initialize the license.

DMDLSConnectionParameters dbrParameters = new DMDLSConnectionParameters();
dbrParameters.organizationID = "200001";
reader.initLicenseFromDLS(dbrParameters, new DBRDLSLicenseVerificationListener() {
      @Override
      public void DLSLicenseVerificationCallback(boolean isSuccessful, Exception e) {
         if (!isSuccessful) {
            e.printStackTrace();
         }
      }
});

Note:

Network connection is required for the license to work.

The organization id 200001 here will grant you a time-limited public trial license.

If the license has expired, please request a trial license through the customer portal.

Create text callback to obtain the recognized barcode results.

TextResultCallback mTextResultCallback = new TextResultCallback() {
// Obtain the recognized barcode results and display.
@Override
   public void textResultCallback(int i, TextResult[] textResults, Object userData) {
         (MainActivity.this).runOnUiThread(new Runnable() {
            @Override
            public void run() {
               showResult(textResults);
            }
         });
   }
};

Create settings of video barcode reading and bind to Barcode Reader object

// Bind the Camera Enhancer instance to the Barcode Reader instance.
// The mCameraEnhancer is the instance of the Dynamsoft Camera Enhancer.
// The Barcode Reader will use this instance to take control of the camera and acquire frames from the camera to start the barcode decoding process.
reader.setCameraEnhancer(mCameraEnhancer);
// Make this setting to get the result. The result will be an object that contains text result and other barcode information.
try {
   reader.setTextResultCallback(mTextResultCallback, null);
} catch (BarcodeReaderException e) {
   e.printStackTrace();
}
// Start the barcode scanning thread.
reader.startScanning();

Override the MainActivity.onResume and MainActivity.onPause functions to start/stop video barcode scanning. After scanning starts, the Barcode Reader will automatically invoke the decodeBuffer API to process the video frames from the Camera Enhancer, then send the recognized barcode results to the text result callback.

@Override
public void onResume() {
// Start video barcode reading
   reader.startScanning();
   try {
      mCameraEnhancer.open();
   } catch (CameraEnhancerException e) {
      e.printStackTrace();
   }
   super.onResume();
}

@Override
public void onPause() {
   // Stop video barcode reading
   reader.stopScanning();
   try {
      mCameraEnhancer.close();
   } catch (CameraEnhancerException e) {
      e.printStackTrace();
   }
   super.onPause();
}

Additional Steps

In the Project window, open app > res > layout > activity_main.xml, create a text view section under the root node to display recognized barcode result.

 <TextView
     android:id="@+id/tv_res"
     android:layout_width="match_parent"
     android:layout_height="200dp"
     android:layout_marginTop="430dp"
     android:textSize="16sp"
     android:gravity="center"
     android:scrollbars="vertical"
     android:textColor="@color/white"
     android:visibility="visible"/>

Display barcode result in TextView.

TextView tvRes;

// Add TextView to display recognized barcode results.
tvRes = findViewById(R.id.tv_res);

private void showResult(TextResult[] results) {
if (results != null && results.length > 0) {
   String strRes = "";
   for (int i = 0; i < results.length; i++)
         strRes += results[i].barcodeText + "\n\n";
   tvRes.setText(strRes);
} else {
   tvRes.setText("");
}

Build and Run the Project

Select the device that you want to run your app on from the target device drop-down menu in the toolbar.
Click the Run app button, then Android Studio installs your app on your connected device and starts it.

You can download the complete source code here:

Android source code

Next Steps

From this page, you have learned how to create a simple video barcode decoding app. In the next steps, the following pages will help you on adding configurations to enhance your barcode reader.

Configure Runtime Settings
Additional Readings
- Barcode Formats