QR codes: make your own here

April 15, 2004 10:50 AM

Interested in QR codes? Make your own here.
This article, in Hypulp, describing how text and data can be coded into noiselike pixel patterns, was fascinating. It made me look for a way to generate these codes myself. Thanks gen for yesterday’s link to Hypulp.
posted by Termite (12 comments total)

This is hot shit. Thanks Termite.
posted by rocketman at 11:08 AM on April 15, 2004

The site's in Japanese, but it's pretty self-explanatory.
Drop down list 1 controls error correction: low to high.
Drop down list 2 is the size of the pixel grid, best left to AUTO.
No. 3 is the size of the code square.
Create your code by clicking the left gray button with kanji characters.
Now who will be the first to post a comment in the form of a QR code...
posted by Termite at 11:11 AM on April 15, 2004

translation of katakana on that japanese page:

for the input box : data

pulldown 1: error level *

pulldown 2: position

pulldown 3: size

* not too sure on this one, and there's a couple kanji in the middle I can't translate
posted by GeekAnimator at 11:12 AM on April 15, 2004

too slow! curses!
posted by GeekAnimator at 11:15 AM on April 15, 2004

And you can get the source code as well;

http://www.swetake.com/qr/qr_cgi.html . Down at the bottom
posted by stuartmm at 11:24 AM on April 15, 2004

This is very interesting. Anyone know if there's reading code available? I've made a barcode reading cd selector (self link) and using a code like this may be useful as a 2D encoding may encourage people not to swipe like they do currently, but to leave the card in the player.
posted by Flat Feet Pete at 11:27 AM on April 15, 2004

I've made a barcode reading cd selector...

...and it's built with Lego bricks. Irresistible.
posted by Termite at 1:33 PM on April 15, 2004

Coincidentally, 2 days ago I wrote a little Tcl script to simply encode data into an grayscale image, the brightness of each pixel for one byte. The resulting images look just like these do. My idea was to see if when you applied e.g. a sound file to image compression techniques, would it actually work as a compression system or totally annihilate the sound. I haven't tried it yet.
posted by abcde at 5:05 PM on April 15, 2004

If you use lossy image compression, abcde, it will do drastic things to the sound, almost certainly. Lossy compression takes advantage of perceptual details, cheats on compressing data where we'll notice it least. I'm pretty certain those domains are different for auditory and visual perception, and unless you happened on some mapping that amazingly connects the two...

Of course, you could be creating an awesome new effect, too... I'd love to hear samples when you're done.
posted by weston at 5:26 PM on April 15, 2004

That reminds me of a page I saw several years ago where a person compressed images with MP3 for fun. The extremely high-contrast picture he started out with became a noisy gray mess, but you could just barely make out the original image. I can't seem to find it on google.
posted by zsazsa at 9:11 PM on April 15, 2004

Fantastic! I'm interested in creating 2d barcodes of RDF, with geowarchalking being a potential use.
posted by deaddodo at 12:36 PM on April 16, 2004

i've just got my new id card, and it's got one of these things on. :o(
posted by andrew cooke at 11:45 AM on April 19, 2004