Smart Solution needed (reading bar code)?

Hello Dear Experts,

Friend of mine is trying to solve the following problem, please give your professional opinion:

He is trying to make a gadget - small box that manages your food supplies in a closet in a kitchen. For example John buys some cans and the small box reads the bar code, stores in a database that John have bought 5 cans for example and displays it.

But what if John use one of this cans for his breakfast and throws it away in the garbage. How to manage the extraction or carrying out the supplies - using and throwing to the garbage.

Please provide me with your knowledge and experience to help my good friend.

Answer 1

[Matt Kindig]

This isn't really a MATLAB question, but anyway....

What exactly do you mean by "manage the extraction or carrying out the supplies - using and throwing to the garbage"? In the scenario where John uses a can, does he scan it before disposal?

Basically, John is trying to "make" a supermarket scanner?

[Steve]

Dear Matt,

Thanks for quick answer!

I mean that if John uses a can how to update the box that he used it - ate it and threw away.

Maybe you have some smart solution.

Answer 2

[Image Analyst]

This idea has been around since the 1980's. I'm not sure why it has never caught on. I've even seen prototypes in "Smart homes of the future" where the kitchen computer was built into a touch panel display on the door of the refrigerator.

Perhaps it was just too much work to make sure your computerized inventory was accurate. Like if you consume something and throw it away without scanning it, suddenly you're not accurate.

Or perhaps everyone was waiting for the day when all packages would have RFID tags on them so scanning is automatic, but then there is the range problem. Privacy proponents don't want a range more than a few centimeters so that would prevent your kitchen computer from being to detect all the RFID tags everywhere that you store grocery store items in your kitchen.

Anyway, I'm not sure why you tagged it as an image processing problem. It could be done with a simple bar code scanner. Heck, there's probably already software out there for this.

[Steve]

Dear Image Analyst,

I'm sorry I don't know what's your name, but firstly let me tell you that I appreciate your quick and informative answer.

I wanted to ask you maybe, with your 30 years experience, you have an idea how to build such system or even using image processing/OCR or something like that to succeed the problem.

[Image Analyst]

I don't know if this is a student project or what but a truly usable system would take far more work than a student could put in. Plus I'm not sure of the market value of such a product. The fact that there is no such system in widespread use despite the fact that the technology has been around for decades probably tells you something. That said, it could be done simply enough for a student project. Even though I've only worked with bar codes on two projects I think that I could get something going. No, you don't need OCR at all, just a simple bar code reader. The ones I used hooked the bar code reader in line with the keyboard so that when they scanned an item (one was automatic and one required you to pull a trigger on a "gun") they would insert the number at the bottom of the bar code just as if you had typed them in via the keyboard. So you would then take that number and compare it to your database of known bar codes and either add or delete the item from the inventory that the consumer has. If you're adding a new one, then you will have to ask them for a description of the item, like it's a 40 ounce box of Tide detergent or something. Then you need to add it to both your database of all items, and your consumer's inventory database. If they've consumed the item and are throwing it away, then delete it from their inventory, but not from the master database of course. That's how I'd proceed for a simple student project like that. I probably would use Microsoft Visual Studio for this instead of MATLAB since there is nothing that really requires the capabilities of MATLAB with this project and the user interface capability of MATLAB, and coding assistance (Intellisense, etc.) can't match that of Visual Studio which is the best out there for that.

By the way, that got me wondering what is the biggest selling consumer item. Maybe it's Coca Cola - they shipped 26.7 billion cases but that's over 200 brands so their flag ship product - full sugar Coke classic - is just a fraction of that. P&G is twice as big as Coca Cola and their biggest products are Pampers and Tide so maybe it's Pampers diapers.

[Walter Roberson]

http://www.sync-blog.com/sync/2007/12/the-top-selling.html

2007 - Amazon - Cannon PowerShot

of course that's internet sales, and you can't buy a can of Coke on Amazon ;-)

(NB: "full sugar" Coke Classic is now made with corn sugar most places in the world. When it was just plain Coke more of it was made with cane sugar. You can still get it with cane sugar if you hunt for it specially.)

Anyhow. There are also mass market consumer goods that are very profitable. See http://bottomline.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/02/06/10281850-the-cheap-items-that-build-billion-dollar-companies?lite

Answer 3

[Walter Roberson]

Each destination should have a bar-code as well. Pantry, refrigerator, garbage. Scan the bar code of the destination and then scan the bar code of the item.

[Steve]

Dear Walter,

Is this the only way to do this?