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Using webcam as a QR code scanner in Python-3.6

I have spent weeks looking for a way to turn my webcam (built into the computer) into a QR scanner using Python but nothing has worked.

In the first instance, I tried installing this software which supposedly would allow me to turn my camera into a barcode scanner, which could then use this video to decode the codes in python. I installed the scanner along with 'pywin32' which was supposedly the library I needed to use, but I couldn't get the two to communicate as my computer kept saying that pywin32 has not been installed (although it had).

Then, I moved onto using zbar/ pyzbar. I downloaded all of the modules that were recommended (I followed the instructions set out on here) but these each came with several more error messages. It was all to do with various libraries and modules not being installed - I've tried downloading PIL/pillow, pyqrcode and a number of other things that are supposed to work, but for some reason, don't.

I don't feel that I can provide any evidence of code as I haven't got any code to fix for this particular issue -- I am simply looking for anyone who may know of a way to transform an ordinary webcam into a barcode/qr scanner using python.

Assuming none of the libraries I need are installed on my computer at the moment, could someone please explain to me exactly which libraries I will need to download, where I can find them, and how I could use them to make Python communicate with my webcam?

This is for my A Level Coursework and the scanner is absolutely fundamental to the program; if anyone can provide me with a useful, understandable solution then I would be really grateful. I apologise if this question is still a little too broad - I am a complete novice to coding and after searching endlessly for hours to find a solution, I feel that this is my final resort.

Solution

  • I did a project on zbar a couple of years ago, and it took 6 months to get zbar working :)

    Here's how I setup zbar:

    1. Zbar python module does require zbar.exe. Go to http://zbar.sourceforge.net/download.html and click either ZBar 0.10 Windows installer if you have windows, or Linux builds. Run zbar-0.10-setup.exe and follow installation instructions.
    2. The Zbar python module is available on pypi. That means a simple pip install zbar will install it.
    3. To get .py examples of Zbar running, first download the source code for zbar (top link on http://zbar.sourceforge.net/download.html ), unzip the tar.bz2 file (use 7zip). Inside the unzipped folder there should be /examples. Inside the folder, you will find several examples (proccessor.py is a good one), which can be run just as you would normally run a python program.