Design And Implementation Of 3D QR Code Generation System For 3D Printing

QR Code,also known as Quick Response Code,has become the most widely used automatic identification technology in the information age.QR Code has more powerful information storage capability than barcode and it can be quickly decoded by the built-in camera via the scanning software included in mobile devices.It is widely used in item identification,product tracking,commercial marketing,such as product labeling and mobile payment.3D Printing,with the name of Additive Manufacturing,has been rapidly developed in recent years.3D Printing not only facilitates the manufacture of various products in the real world,but also enters the lives of the people.Based on the fact that QR Code decoding requires a high-contrast image having at least two colors,a 3D QR Code printed on a planar object using two colors of material has appeared.However,popular consumer-level 3D printers can only print materials of a single attribute,limited to the single color printing.At the same time,product tracking and anti-counterfeiting of 3D printed objects have gradually attracted people's attention.Usually,the QR Code needs a secondary processing such as pasting to be added to the product.However,physically printed paper QR Codes are naturally non-weatherproof and easily damaged by harsh environmental climate or other external forces.In addition,they can be easily forged using standard copy-machines.Traditionally,compared to the free-form surface,only the expandable surface can easily add the QR Code.The QR Code recognition operates on curved surfaces also yields low recognition rates,which becomes a limitation when using QR Codes on arbitrary 3D models.In view of the above,we describe the design and implementation of 3D QR Code generation system for 3D printing,and propose a generation method of 3D QR Codes on arbitrary surface.We introduce a novel representation of QR Codes as 3D structures that are embedded on arbitrary shapes.Specifically,our method physically prints the 3D QR Code on the given region by users.3D QR Codes are computed from their 2D counterpart as a carefully designed set of carved geometry modules on the surface which encode the black-and-white QR pattern.At the core of our method,we utilize self-shadows cast by 3D geometry modules on the surface to generate a correct black-white pattern with adequate contrast which can be easily decoded by standard QR readers.Our method in this paper allows embedding on arbitrary objects with minimal modification of the shape and even on thin shell surfaces or highly curved ones.Our 3D QR Codes can be produced using consumer-level 3D printers and common homogeneous materials.Our technique is robust to lighting environments and scanning angles and allows to easily decode 3D QR Codes with similarity to the 2D version.The strong readability of a 3D QR Code generated by our method will make it an excellent candidate for embedding information on physical 3D objects,which can be widely used in 3D model ownership and tracking,3D watermarking and so on.