ZbarSDK : stop processing without disabling camera - iphone

I have an app that should be able to scan a lot of QR Codes in few minutes. So it has to be reactive. I use ZBarSDK and I am satisfied with it.
When data are received by the delegate with processScannedData:(NSString *)scannedData, I present a message that has to be manually dismissed. To be fast, I lock the focus at this distance by interacting with the AVCaptureDevice assuming that next QR Codes will be presented at the same distance.
This system works pretty well except in one situation : When I present my message after a scan, I don't stop the camera to avoid losing the focus I have just locked to. If you present the next QR Code below before dismissing the message, my processScannedData:(NSString *)scannedData delegate method will catch it and ignore the data as expected. The only problem is that if you dismiss the message at that point (keeping the camera above the QR Code), data won't be received but the delegate method has already been fired, you will be forced to look for a few seconds at another point and then come back to your QR Code.
So here is my question : is it possible to tell ZBar that I don't want him to fire the delegate method until I explicitly tell him to do so ? Is it possible to stop processing data without stopping the camera ?
Thank you for your help

I initially thought that the ZBarSDK configuration couldn't be modified while the camera was working, but it actually can.
One can then simply use :
- (void)disableQRCodeDetection
{
// disabling all symbols detection for performance reasons
[self.scanner setSymbology: 0
config: ZBAR_CFG_ENABLE
to: 0];
}
- (void)enableQRCodeDetection
{
// We enable QR Code detection
[self.scanner setSymbology: ZBAR_QRCODE
config: ZBAR_CFG_ENABLE
to: 1];
}

Related

Any way to determine if the camera is idle?

I'm working with the raw camera image, but need to restart the preview following the capture of an image. When i call startPreview() following takePicture, the android hangs because the camera is till in use. I've waited till after the raw image has been written to disk, but the camera is still in use, so the start preview still hangs the system.
camera.takePicture(null, null, null);
(test needed here){
camera.startPreview();
}
Putting the start preview in the rawcallback hangs the android.
When calling takePicture, the jpegCallback occurs after the camera is finished, so it is safe to start the preview, but this also creates a .jpg.
The question is following the takePicture, is there any way to determine when the camera is idle? (other than the jpegCallback?).
I've found ways around the problem, such as starting the preview on a timer, but still wonder if there is any way to determine the actual status of the camera and a way to test when it is save to restart the preview.
After calling the takePicture() function, you must wait until the JPEG callback has returned for the camera to be ready to use again. There is no way to monitor its status. The documentation explicitly states the following:
After calling this method, you must not call startPreview() or take
another picture until the JPEG callback has returned.
If you need some fast way of grabbing frames (i.e. images) without stopping and restarting the camera preview, you can implement the PreviewCallback interface which will simply allow you to grab preview frames without stopping the preview at all. Just remember that you will need to convert these from YUV format (which is not difficult using Android's YUVImage class.

CLLocationManager sometimes stops updating while app is in background

I have an app which uses CLLocationManager to track the user's route, drawing dots along the path taken. The app runs in the background using Required background modes > App registers for location updates.
As I understand, anything that happens in the background needs to be called from locationManager:didUpdateToLocation:fromLocation as this is the method that gets called with each location update.
The problem I'm having is that sometimes this stops getting called. It seems to happen when the user's location does not change much within the space of maybe 15 minutes or so. As far as I can tell, calls to locationManager:didUpdateToLocation:fromLocation just stop, presumably to save the battery. Unfortunately, it doesn't resume again when you're back on the move.
I presume there's no way to override this behaviour, so I would like to use Notification Centre to inform the user that the app is no longer recording the route. The problem is, how can the app know that this has happened? If locationManager:didUpdateToLocation:fromLocation is not called, I can't fire my notification. If it is being called, the notification should not fire.
Is there some kind of system notification that says location updates will cease?
I'm finding it quite hard to debug this as I can't take my Mac everywhere when I'm out and about testing the location on the device (there's only so much you can do in the simulator). Any tips for debugging would also be much appreciated!
If you haven't found the answer, I think it is because of a new attribute added to CLLocationManager called pausesLocationUpdatesAutomatically. The attribute defaults to YES, and its behaviour is exactly as you describe. Try setting it to NO and I think it will fix your problem.
Starting in iOS9, make sure you're also setting this property on your location manager:
[locationManager setAllowsBackgroundLocationUpdates:YES]
There's a delegate for location update did Fail
-(void)locationManager:(CLLocationManager *)manager didFailWithError:(NSError *)error
There are a few kinds of errors: kCLErrorDenied kCLErrorNetwork Add code here to handle them in the delegate method above not updating location, perhaps a UIAlertView to tell the user.
Personally, I call [locationManager stopUpdatingLocation]; on any error then restart it with an error message depending on the reason for the failure.
ALSO re background, check code in your appDelegate:
- (void)applicationDidEnterBackground:(UIApplication *)application
{
// Use this method to release shared resources, save user data, invalidate timers, and store enough application state information to restore your application to its current state in case it is terminated later.
// If your application supports background execution, this method is called instead of applicationWillTerminate: when the user quits.
[self saveContext];
if ([CLLocationManager significantLocationChangeMonitoringAvailable]) {
// Stop normal location updates and start significant location change updates for battery efficiency.
[self.locationHandler.locationManager stopUpdatingLocation];
[self.locationHandler.locationManager startMonitoringSignificantLocationChanges];
}
else {
NSLog(#"Significant location change monitoring is not available.");
}
}
LASTLY re: testing. You can simulate some errors in location by changing the location movement in the simulator. For example, going from running to driving will cause an error. Going from running to a single specific custom location will cause an error. They should all appear in the delegate method for locationManager above.
I've managed to solve the problem by adding a local notification that fires with a 90 second delay every time a new location is added to the route. When the next location is added, the previous notification is cancelled and a new one is scheduled. This way, if it stops updating, a notification is received by the user (albeit with a 90 second delay). It's not ideal, and it may not be great for battery life, but it is a solution and it's the best I've got for the time being.
#Ron, I meet the same problem as beev describe, and i had already set pausesLocationUpdatesAutomatically to NO. I think because iOS will kill some apps that didn't be triggered in 10 minutes when it's under background. So add local notification maybe a good choice at the moment.

barcodereader sample application

I am using the barcodereader sample application provided in the cascades samples to embed a QRCode scanner into my application.
As it stands the sample is great, but I want the scanner to open as soon as the user navigates to my screen and I want to get rid of the opening slider images that are in the sample.
Firstly, I have tried removing the images and their animations and adding the action:
onCreationCompleted: {
camera.open()
}
to the Page. This opens the camera perfectly as expected, but for some reason, the bacrode just doesn't scan.
So, I wound back a step, and this time I just put the code in exactly as is and just changed the code to read:
onCreationCompleted: {
startupAnimation.play()
}
As expected, the screen open, plays the annimation, but still it fails to read barcodes, however, if I invoke the animation again (by tapping the screen), the animation plays again and the scanner reads the barcode without any issues at all.
All I can think of is that this is a timing issue and that I need some sort of delay after the screen has been created before the camera can be started as a barcode reader?
Anyone able to help?
Thanks,
Douglas
To get scanning right away at application launch, you need to make sure the camera is actually set up and initialized.
Basically, in onCreationComplete, open the camera. In onCameraOpened, start the viewfinder. In onViewfinderStarted, set the barcode detector camera to be the camera.

iphone html 5 video - how to start from different time

What is the correct way to begin playback of a video from a specific time?
Currently, the approach we use is to check at an interval whether it's possible to seek via currentTime and then seek. The problem with this is, when the video fullscreen view pops up, it begins playback from the beginning for up to a second before seeking.
I've tried events such as onloadmetadata and canplay, but those seem to happen too early.
Added information:
It seems the very best I can do is to set a timer that tries to set currentTime repeatedly as soon as play() is called, however, this is not immediate enough. The video loads from the beginning, and after about a second, depending on the device, jumps. This is a problem for me as it provides an unsatisfactory experience to the user.
It seems like there can be no solution which does better, but I'm trying to see if there is either:
a) something clever/undocumented which I have missed which allows you to either seek before loading or otherwise indicate that the video needs to start not from 00:00 but from an arbitrary point
b) something clever which allows you to hide the video while it's playing and not display it until it has seeked (So you would see a longer delay on the phone before the fullscreen video window pops up, but it would start immediately where I need it to instead of seeking)
do something like this;
var video = document.getElementsById("video");
video.currentTime = starttimeoffset;
more Information can be found on this page dedicated to video time offset howtos
For desktop browser Chrome/Safari, you can append #t=starttimeoffsetinseconds to your video src url to make it start from certain position.
For iOS device, the best we can do is to listen for the timeupdated event, and do the seek in there. I guess this is the same as your original approach of using a timer.
-R

UIAccelerometer is Shaking

I want a functionality in which i want to detect if my device is being shaked.The problem is i can detect the shake with didAccelerate method of UIAcceleratorDelegate , but i dont know how to detect if the device is still shaking. I want to play an audio file when the user shakes the device for first time,i have to check if the user is still shaking the device while playing the 1st audio file,if it is still being shaked, then i have to play another file.
See the sample project GLPaint from Apple which was found by visiting http://developer.apple.com/iphone and entering "shake" in the search box. Developer account not required.
You might consider writing a Method that runs in a separate thread that polls wether your device is being shaken every now and then and fire events that you handle somewhere else in your code (or instead of that, handle whatever you want to handle within the threads context itself, even tough i would not recommend doing that).
You just have to make sure, that your "shake-detektor"-thread exits at some point in time, you probably want to do that when the second audio file stopped playing. So your loop could test on that condition.
Hope I could help a bit.