The Mystery of Barcodes and QR Codes ++

Self-checkout counters at supermarkets and similar places have become quite widespread, haven't they? It might even be rare to find someone who hasn't used one.

Have you ever wondered about the 'orientation' of the target when performing the action of holding a product's barcode up to a red light source, or the action of taking a photo of a QR code with a smartphone, which I will touch upon later? In other words, it reads it accurately even if you turn it upside down 🙆

Have you ever wondered why that is?

At a self-checkout counter.
What is attached to individual products is a one-dimensional barcode, also called a 'JAN code'. It represents one character through a combination of the widths of alternating bars and spaces, totaling 13 digits.
※ A link to an article about 'misconceptions regarding country codes' is at the end of the manuscript 🙇

Therefore, if you assume that the width (segment) of the light beam moves sequentially from left to right—like the old-fashioned scanner image where the barcode must fit within the width of a rod-shaped red light beam—it seems like you would get a different result if you held it in the 'opposite direction'!

--- But in reality, there is a bar pattern representing the start at the left end and the stop at the right end and because it recognizes each of these, 'misreading due to reverse orientation' does not occur 😲

Instead of worrying that an [error] might occur, the actual image is more like the light beam's width (segment) moving back and forth at ultra-high speed.

If you simply turn it upside down and try to start from the left end, the aforementioned [start] bar pattern does not appear, so it says 'That's not it!', the light instantly runs in the reverse order, and the reading is complete! 👍

It scans with a stance of 'Where are the beginning and the end?' within the range hit by the light (meaning it doesn't matter if it's upside down and the [beginning] is positioned on the right side or reversed) ...that is the case for one-dimensional barcodes ☝

On the other hand, since a QR code is a two-dimensional 'plane', it has no 'ends' 🙅
This leads to the issue that a mechanism must be provided to separately identify 'where the [starting point] is'. Compared to a one-dimensional barcode where it is sufficient to distinguish between [correct] and [reverse], the situation is more complex, and there are four types of [visual inversion patterns]: vertical, horizontal, and upside down.

The elements involved in that concern are clear as 'features that anyone would notice', but...

Looking at a QR code, can you think of any points that have made you wonder, 'What is this?' until now?

Among the four corners, there are squares only in the three corners excluding the bottom right. These are called 'position detection patterns' or 'finder patterns', and they play a role in the aforementioned concern.
No matter which way it is oriented during a scan, you can catch which corner of the entire [data zone] is the 'bottom right', in other words, the appropriate direction 👍

marks necessary for indicating/sensing the top, bottom, left, and right directions, in other words, did you realize that these are "designs implemented for a specific purpose"?

† "QR" stands for Quick Response☝
This is one of the ingenious points that enables rapid scanning🤔

The codes posted here are not links that lead to scams or suspicious websites, okay👌 If you are viewing this on a PC, the moment you point your smartphone camera at the monitor, it decodes it📷, what a convenient world we live in☆彡

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