Building Java Barcode QR Code Reading Apps: Dynamsoft vs. ZXing

In previous article, we discussed how to construct a command-line barcode and QR code scanning application using Java and Dynamsoft Barcode Reader. In this article, we will create more fancy applications, such as a desktop GUI application and a web application. In addition, we will import ZXing SDK to make a comparison with Dynamsoft Barcode Reader.

This article is Part 2 in a 2-Part Series.

SDK Version

Maven Configuration

Configure the dependencies in the pom.xml file:

<repositories>
        <repository>
            <id>dbr</id>
            <url>https://download2.dynamsoft.com/maven/dbr/jar</url>
        </repository>
</repositories>
<dependencies>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>com.dynamsoft</groupId>
            <artifactId>dbr</artifactId>
            <version>9.0.0</version>
        </dependency>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>com.google.zxing</groupId>
            <artifactId>core</artifactId>
            <version>3.4.0</version>
          </dependency>
</dependencies>

Test Image

The test image contains multiple barcode and QR code.

multiple barcode image

A Variety of Java Applications for Scanning Barcode and QR Code

Let’s see how ZXing and Dynamsoft Barcode Reader perform in command-line, GUI and web applications.

Command-Line Application

Create a new Maven project:

mvn archetype:generate -DgroupId=com.java.barcode -DartifactId=app -DarchetypeArtifactId=maven-archetype-quickstart -DarchetypeVersion=1.4 -DinteractiveMode=false

Import ZXing and Dynamsoft Barcode Reader:

import com.dynamsoft.dbr.*;
import com.google.zxing.BinaryBitmap;
import com.google.zxing.MultiFormatReader;
import com.google.zxing.NotFoundException;
import com.google.zxing.RGBLuminanceSource;
import com.google.zxing.Result;
import com.google.zxing.common.HybridBinarizer;
import com.google.zxing.multi.*;

Decode the image file with ImageIO and BufferedImage:

import java.awt.image.*;
import javax.imageio.ImageIO;

BufferedImage image = null;
try {
    image = ImageIO.read(new File(filename));
} catch (IOException e) {
    System.out.println(e);
    return;
}

To read multiple barcodes encoded with different barcode symbologies in ZXing, we need to use MultiFormatReader and GenericMultipleBarcodeReader. The BufferedImage needs to be converted to BinaryBitmap:

BinaryBitmap bitmap = null;
int[] pixels = image.getRGB(0, 0, image.getWidth(), image.getHeight(), null, 0, image.getWidth());
RGBLuminanceSource source = new RGBLuminanceSource(image.getWidth(), image.getHeight(), pixels);
bitmap = new BinaryBitmap(new HybridBinarizer(source));
            
MultiFormatReader reader = new MultiFormatReader();  
GenericMultipleBarcodeReader multiReader = new GenericMultipleBarcodeReader(reader);
try {
    Result[] zxingResults = multiReader.decodeMultiple(bitmap);
} catch (NotFoundException e) {
    e.printStackTrace();
}
pixels = null;
bitmap = null;

In contrast, invoking Dynamsoft Barcode Reader API is much simpler, because it supports BufferedImage as the input parameter:

BarcodeReader br = null;
try {
    br = new BarcodeReader("DLS2eyJoYW5kc2hha2VDb2RlIjoiMjAwMDAxLTE2NDk4Mjk3OTI2MzUiLCJvcmdhbml6YXRpb25JRCI6IjIwMDAwMSIsInNlc3Npb25QYXNzd29yZCI6IndTcGR6Vm05WDJrcEQ5YUoifQ==");
} catch (Exception e) {
    System.out.println(e);
    return;
}

TextResult[] results = null;
try {
    results = br.decodeBufferedImage(image, "");
} catch (Exception e) {
    System.out.println("decode buffered image: " + e);
}

To run the Java program conveniently in terminal, we assemble all dependencies into one jar file by using the maven-assembly-plugin:

<build>
<plugins>
    <plugin>
        <artifactId>maven-assembly-plugin</artifactId>
        <configuration>
            <descriptorRefs>
                <descriptorRef>jar-with-dependencies</descriptorRef>
            </descriptorRefs>
        </configuration>
    </plugin>
</plugins>
</build>

Build the Maven project and run the application:

mvn clean install assembly:assembly -Dmaven.test.skip=true
java -cp target/command-line-1.0-SNAPSHOT-jar-with-dependencies.jar com.java.barcode.App ..\images\AllSupportedBarcodeTypes.png

java barcode command line

We can see ZXing only returns 8 results, whereas Dynamsoft Barcode Reader returns 18 results.

💡 Here is a more comprehensive report of ZXing vs. its alternatives for scanning QR Codes.

Desktop GUI Application built with Java Swing

Based on the command-line Java program created above, we can add Swing class to turn the command-line app into a GUI app.

Import the relevant classes:

import javax.swing.JPanel;
import javax.swing.JScrollPane;
import javax.swing.JTextArea;
import javax.swing.JButton;
import javax.swing.JFileChooser;
import javax.swing.JFrame;
import javax.swing.JComboBox;
import javax.swing.SwingUtilities;
import javax.swing.UIManager;
import javax.swing.filechooser.FileNameExtensionFilter;

import java.awt.BorderLayout;
import java.awt.Toolkit;
import java.awt.event.ActionEvent;
import java.awt.event.ActionListener;

The widgets we need include JTextArea, JButton, JFileChooser and JComboBox:

  • JTextArea: display the results.
  • JButton: trigger the click event.
  • JFileChooser: select an image file from the disk drive.
  • JComboBox: toggle ZXing and Dynamsoft Barcode Reader.

We initialize the layout with all the widgets:

public App() {
    super(new BorderLayout());
    
    mFileChooser = new JFileChooser();
    FileNameExtensionFilter filter = new FileNameExtensionFilter(
            ".png", "png");
    mFileChooser.setFileFilter(filter);
    mLoad = new JButton("Load File");
    mLoad.addActionListener(this);
    
    mSourceList = new JComboBox(new String[]{"ZXing", "Dynamsoft"});
    mSourceList.setSelectedIndex(0);
    
    JPanel buttonPanel = new JPanel(); 
    buttonPanel.add(mSourceList);
    buttonPanel.add(mLoad);
    add(buttonPanel, BorderLayout.PAGE_START);
    
    mTextArea = new JTextArea();
    mTextArea.setSize(480, 480);
    JScrollPane sp = new JScrollPane(mTextArea); 
    add(sp, BorderLayout.CENTER);
}

As the button click event is triggered, we can load an image for recognizing barcode and QR code:

public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent e) {

    int returnVal = mFileChooser.showOpenDialog(App.this);

    if (returnVal == JFileChooser.APPROVE_OPTION) {
        File file = mFileChooser.getSelectedFile();     
        String filename = file.toPath().toString();          
        if (mSourceList.getSelectedItem().toString().equals("Dynamsoft")) {
            TextResult[] results = decodefileDynamsoft(filename);
        }
        else {
            Result[] results = decodefileZXing(filename);
        }
    } 
}

Build and run the Java GUI application:

mvn clean install assembly:assembly -Dmaven.test.skip=true
java -cp target/gui-1.0-SNAPSHOT-jar-with-dependencies.jar com.java.barcode.App

java barcode gui

You can switch ZXing and Dynamsoft Barcode Reader by drop-down list.

Web Application built with Java Spring Boot

Spring Boot is used to develop web applications. We can follow the official tutorial to get started with a simple web app.

To quickly test the server-side Java barcode API, we can integrate swagger-ui into the Spring Boot app by adding the following dependencies:

<dependency>
    <groupId>org.springdoc</groupId>
    <artifactId>springdoc-openapi-core</artifactId>
    <version>1.1.45</version>
    <exclusions>
        <exclusion>
            <groupId>io.github.classgraph</groupId>
            <artifactId>classgraph</artifactId>
        </exclusion>
    </exclusions>
</dependency>
<dependency>
    <groupId>org.springdoc</groupId>
    <artifactId>springdoc-openapi-ui</artifactId>
    <version>1.1.45</version>
</dependency>

Afterwards, we create a controller that contains POST mappings for ZXing and Dynamsoft Barcode Reader:

@RestController
public class BarcodeController {

    private DynamsoftBarcode mDynamsoftBarcode;
    private ZXingBarcode mZXingBarcode;

    @Autowired
    public BarcodeController(DynamsoftBarcode dynamsoft, ZXingBarcode zxing) 
    {
        mDynamsoftBarcode = dynamsoft;
        mZXingBarcode = zxing;
    }

    @PostMapping(value = "/api/dynamsoft"
            , consumes = MediaType.MULTIPART_FORM_DATA_VALUE
            , produces = MediaType.APPLICATION_JSON_VALUE)
    public BarcodeResponse getDynamsoft(@RequestPart MultipartFile file) throws Exception {
        return mDynamsoftBarcode.decode(file.getOriginalFilename(), file.getInputStream());
    }

    @PostMapping(value = "/api/zxing"
            , consumes = MediaType.MULTIPART_FORM_DATA_VALUE
            , produces = MediaType.APPLICATION_JSON_VALUE)
    public BarcodeResponse getZXing(@RequestPart MultipartFile file) throws Exception {
        return mZXingBarcode.decode(file.getOriginalFilename(), file.getInputStream());
    }
}

Finally, we build and run the Spring Boot app as follows:

mvn clean install
java -jar target/web-1.0-SNAPSHOT.jar

Now, visit http://localhost:8080/swagger-ui.html to test ZXing and Dynamsoft Barcode Reader via POST event.

java barcode spring boot

Source Code

https://github.com/yushulx/java-barcode-command-gui-web