Abstract:
A data glyph and method, system, and computer program product for creating and reading the data glyph is provided. In one embodiment the data glyph is created by combining individual glyph elements, wherein each glyph element is selected from a list of glyph elements corresponding to one of each of the hexadecimal numerals 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, A, B, C, D, E, and F. Each glyph element is made from darkening a unique subset of cells from an array of allowable cells.

Description:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 
     1. Technical Field 
     The present invention relates generally to computer software and, more particularly, to generating and reading data glyphs and other two dimensional barcodes. 
     2. Description of Related Art 
     Data glyphs and barcodes are used extensively in industry for embedding information within printed documents, soft documents, and on products. These glyphs and barcodes can be scanned to retrieve a variety of information. For example, a document may be encoded with a data glyph or barcode which, when read by a computer, identifies the location at which a soft copy of the document may be retrieved, thereby allowing a user to retrieve and edit the document. Without the barcode or data glyph, the location at which a soft copy of a document is stored may be unknowable in an environment in which thousands of documents are created and stored. 
     Another area in which data glyphs and barcodes are utilized which may be more familiar to most people is on products available for purchase in various stores. Each product is labeled with, for example, a bar code which identifies the product and allows the store to associate a price with the product. Thus, when the store scans the product, the price is automatically entered into the cash register. 
     One problem with many existing glyphs and/or barcodes is that they are based on the binary or decimal numeric systems. This limits the amount of data that can be stored in a glyph or barcode per unit area of glyph or barcode. Because barcodes and glyphs are being used in more and more applications to store larger amounts of data, it would be desirable to have a glyph that can store a greater amount of data per unit area than is possible with existing glyphs. 
     SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION 
     The present invention provides a data glyph and method, system, and computer program product for creating and reading the data glyph. In one embodiment the data glyph is created by combining individual glyph elements, wherein each glyph element is selected from a list of glyph elements corresponding to one of each of the hexadecimal numerals 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, A, B, C, D, E, and F. Each glyph element is made from darkening a unique subset of cells from an array of allowable cells. 
    
    
     
       BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS 
       The novel features believed characteristic of the invention are set forth in the appended claims. The invention itself, however, as well as a preferred mode of use, further objectives and advantages thereof, will best be understood by reference to the following detailed description of an illustrative embodiment when read in conjunction with the accompanying drawings, wherein: 
         FIG. 1  depicts a pictorial representation of a data processing system, scanner, and printer in which the present invention may be implemented; 
         FIG. 2  depicts a block diagram of a data processing system in which the present invention may be implemented; 
         FIG. 3  illustrates the six cells which may be darkened or left blank in order to create a Hex-A-Braille glyph according to the present invention; 
         FIG. 4  depicts a table illustrating the relationship between a hexadecimal numeral and a Hex-A-Braille glyph; 
         FIG. 5  depicts a comparison of a binary glyph and a Hex-A-Braille glyph representations of the same message; 
         FIG. 6  depicts a process flow and program function for generating a Hex-A-Braille glyph in accordance with one embodiment of the present invention; 
         FIG. 7  depicts a process flow and program function for reading a Hex-A-Braille glyph in accordance with one embodiment of the present invention; and 
         FIGS. 8A–8D  depict tables illustrating mapping of ASCII characters to Hex-A-Braille format according to one embodiment of the present invention. 
     
    
    
     DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENT 
     With reference now to the figures, and in particular with reference to  FIG. 1 , a pictorial representation depicts a data processing system, scanner, and printer in which the present invention may be implemented in accordance with a preferred embodiment of the present invention. A personal computer  100  is depicted which includes a system unit  110 , a video display terminal  102 , a keyboard  104 , storage devices  108 , which may include floppy drives and other types of permanent and removable storage media, and a pointing device  106 , such as a mouse. A scanner  126  is also connected to computer  100  to scan glyphs  130 . Computer  100  may also be connected to a network or Internet and receive software glyphs through, for example, a browser. Additional input devices may be included with personal computer  100 , as will be readily apparent to those of ordinary skill in the art. 
     Computer  100  may also be utilized to create glyphs. Glyphs created by computer  100  may be displayed on a video display terminal  102 , sent to another computer, stored as software, or printed on printer  120  which is connected to computer  100 . The glyphs of the present invention are described in more detail below. 
     The personal computer  100  can be implemented using any suitable computer. Although the depicted representation shows a personal computer, other embodiments of the present invention may be implemented in other types of data processing systems, such as mainframes, workstations, network computers, Internet appliances, palm computers, etc. Furthermore, although scanner  126  is depicted as a handheld scanner, other types of scanners may be utilized as well. 
     The system unit  110  comprises memory, a central processing unit, one or more I/O units, and the like. However, in the present invention, the system unit  110  preferably contains a speculative processor, either as the central processing unit (CPU) or as one of multiple CPUs present in the system unit. 
     With reference now to  FIG. 2 , a block diagram of a data processing system in which the present invention may be implemented is illustrated. Data processing system  200  is an example of a data processing system that may be implemented as, for example, computer  100  in  FIG. 1 . Data processing system  200  employs a peripheral component interconnect (PCI) local bus architecture. Although the depicted example employs a PCI bus, other bus architectures, such as Micro Channel and ISA, may be used. Processor  202  and main memory  204  are connected to PCI local bus  206  through PCI bridge  208 . PCI bridge  208  may also include an integrated memory controller and cache memory for processor  202 . Additional connections to PCI local bus  206  may be made through direct component interconnection or through add-in boards. In the depicted example, local area network (LAN) adapter  210 , SCSI host bus adapter  212 , and expansion bus interface  214  are connected to PCI local bus  206  by direct component connection. In contrast, audio adapter  216 , graphics adapter  218 , and audio/video adapter (A/V)  219  are connected to PCI local bus  206  by add-in boards inserted into expansion slots. Expansion bus interface  214  provides a connection for a keyboard and mouse adapter  220 , modem  222 , and additional memory  224 . In the depicted example, a SCSI host bus adapter  212  provides a connection for hard disk drive  226 , tape drive  228 , CD-ROM drive  230 , and digital video disc read only memory drive (DVD-ROM)  232 . Typical PCI local bus implementations will support three or four PCI expansion slots or add-in connectors. 
     An operating system runs on processor  202  and is used to coordinate and provide control of various components within data processing system  200  in  FIG. 2 . The operating system may be a commercially available operating system, such as Windows XP, which is available from Microsoft Corporation of Redmond, Wash. “Windows XP” is a trademark of Microsoft Corporation. An object oriented programming system, such as Java, may run in conjunction with the operating system, providing calls to the operating system from Java programs or applications executing on data processing system  200 . Instructions for the operating system, the object-oriented programming system, and applications or programs are located on a storage device, such as hard disk drive  226 , and may be loaded into main memory  204  for execution by processor  202 . The applications may include instructions for generating, translating, and/or reading Hex-A-Braille Glyphs in accordance with the present invention. 
     Those of ordinary skill in the art will appreciate that the hardware in  FIG. 2  may vary depending on the implementation. For example, other peripheral devices, such as optical disk drives and the like, may be used in addition to or in place of the hardware depicted in  FIG. 2 . The depicted example is not meant to imply architectural limitations with respect to the present invention. For example, the processes of the present invention may be applied to multiprocessor data processing systems. 
     With reference now to  FIGS. 3 and 4 ,  FIG. 3  illustrates the six cells which may be darkened or left blank in order to create a Hex-A-Braille Glyph according to the present invention and  FIG. 4  provides a table illustrating the relationship between a hexadecimal numeral and a Hex-A-Braille Glyph. 
     In order to create a glyph that offers a higher capacity for storing information per unit area than a barcode or glyph based on the binary (base-2) or decimal (base 10) systems, a hexadecimal (base-16) system is selected. For example, the letter “e” in the ASCII character set is character number 101 (Base 10). 101 (Base 10) is equal to 01100101 (Base 2), which is eight digits long. 101 (Base 10) is also equal to 65 (Base 16), which is just two digits long. Thus, the hexadecimal system offers an improvement in capacity over both the decimal and binary-based systems because it requires fewer digits to represent the same data element. 
     The next part of the solution is to map the elements of the hexadecimal system to unique machine readable visual patterns. Each pattern should be based on the same structure and that structure should be as compact as possible. The Base 2 or binary system can be easily represented by a variety of patterns, such as, for example forward slashes and backslashes (/ and \). The decimal (Base 10) and hexadecimal (Base 16) are more challenging to represent because their systems contain more unique elements (ten and sixteen respectively) that need to be patterned. This challenge is met by using a visual pattern based on the Braille system. Thus, the name of the glyph of the present invention, Hex-A-Braille. 
     Hex-A-Braille may be used to represent both the process of creating the glyph and the resulting glyph. The Hex-A-Braille Process is the process of mapping hexadecimal data into a visual representation or pattern in a Hex-A-Braille Glyph. The glyph may exist in various mediums: hard copy print, soft copy files, or onscreen displays, etc. Because it is based in the hexadecimal system, it is easily understandable and allows for inclusion of sophisticated features such as encryption, compression, error checking and more. 
     The Hex-A-Braille Glyph  300  is composed of six cells  301 – 306  arranged in a three row by two column format as shown in  FIG. 3 . The lines delineating the cells  301 – 306  are there for illustration and readability only. These lines are not part of the Hex-A-Braille Glyph  300  structure. Each of the six cells  301 – 306  in the glyph  300  is of equal size and is comprised of one or more addressable units, which is determined by various factors such as the intended application or use; medium where the glyph  300  will exist; and the resolution of the devices used to both create and read the resulting glyph  300  structure. In the depicted example ( FIG. 3 ), each of cells  301 – 306  has four addressable units per cell. Because the cell  301 – 306  size and thus resulting glyph  300  size may vary from application to application, so will the amount of data that can be stored in any given area. The amount of data that can be “stored” in a given area is inversely proportional to the size of the glyph  300 . As the cell  301 – 306  and thus glyph  300  size increases, the capacity per area or density decreases, and vise-versa. Maximum density is reached when each Hex-A-Braille Glyph  300  is comprised of cells  301 – 306  equaling one unit of measure, which represents the lowest addressable space for a given medium, for example a single pixel of a video display unit, or a single dot on a printed piece of paper. 
     No value is assigned to any of the six individual cells  301 – 306  making up the glyph  300 . It is the resulting pattern produced by the collective combination of cells  301 – 306 , which holds value. The pattern formed by the shaded cells  301 – 306  of the Hex-A-Braille Glyph is representative of the Braille pattern for the respective numbers/characters making up the Hexadecimal (Base 16) numeric system. The table depicted in  FIG. 4  illustrates the relationship between the Hexadecimal values (0–15) represented by the Hexadecimal numbers/characters (0–F) and the Braille System. The chart also depicts the corresponding Hex-A-Braille Glyph in the bottom row. 
     The Hex-A-Braille format is superior to simple two dimensional barcodes in the amount of data that can be stored and in the number of distinct characters that can be represented within the data marking. Additionally, the Hex-A-Braille format offers benefits over binary-based data glyph formats such as the competing binary format illustrated below. 
     Consider the following text message: “Hello World”. The decimal ASCII values for this message (including the space between “Hello” and “World”) are 72, 101, 108, 108, 111, 032, 087, 111, 114, 108, and 100. The binary ASCII values for this message are 01001000, 01100101, 01101100, 01101100, 01101111, 00100000, 01010111, 01101111, 01110010, 01101100, 01100100. The Hexadecimal ASCII Values for the same message are 48, 65, 6C, 6C, 6F, 20, 57, 6F, 72, 6C, and 64. It is clear just from looking at the resulting number of characters needed to represent the message that the Hexadecimal system represents a significant increase in data density over the decimal system and a far superior data density over the binary system. Referring to  FIG. 5 , a binary glyph  502  representing the message “Hello World” is presented along with a Hex-A-Braille Glyph  504  of the same message using the similar font size for both glyphs. This comparison makes an even more striking statement as to the superiority of the Hex-A-Braille Glyph over prior art glyphs such as binary glyph  502 . Thus, the Hex-A-Braille image requires fewer characters and thus offers a higher density form factor. 
     Much like barcodes and other glyphs the Hex-A-Braille Glyph of the present invention provides a means for machines to communicate with one another through the visual patterns of the glyph. While glyphs and barcodes are similar in nature, a glyph is typically far more sophisticated. The Hex-A-Braille Glyph can be used like a simple barcode or for more complex applications, such as, for example, providing in-line, real-time finishing instructions to a copier or printer as the original document is created, providing a means of re-creating an entire document based on a small glyph placed on the document itself, using the Hex-A-Braille Glyph to load entire programs into a device capable of reading the glyph. Furthermore, the Hex-A-Braille Glyph could be displayed as a graphic or part of a graphic on a web page. The browser could then interpret the glyph and act accordingly. The Hex-A-Braille Glyph also provides some security against prying eyes since data in a glyph is easily readable by machines but masked to the users. 
     Applications for the Hex-A-Braille Glyph are really somewhat limitless. Any data elements may be encoded into a glyph, which can be stored or represented in a variety of mediums. These glyphs can then be read by a variety of devices for a variety of purposes. The Hex-A-Braille Glyph offers a potential 4× capacity improvement over binary-based glyphs. The 6 cell (3 row×2 column) format of the Hex-A-Braille Glyph is also expected to offer additional capacity over other existing glyph based upon a larger footprint. 
     The Hex-A-Braille Glyphs illustrated in  FIGS. 3–5  are provided as examples of a Hex-A-Braille Glyph. Those skilled in the art will recognize that many modifications to the glyph of the present invention may be made without departing from the scope or spirit of the present invention. For example, rather than having a 2-column by 3-row glyph, the glyph could be placed on its side as a 3-column, 2-row glyph. Furthermore, other schemes for uniquely mapping a hexadecimal numeral to the Hex-A-Braille Glyph other than that provided by the Braille system may be utilized. 
     With reference now to  FIG. 6 , a process flow and program function for generating a Hex-A-Braille Glyph is depicted in accordance with one embodiment of the present invention. This process may be implemented, for example, as a set of computer readable instructions executed within a data processing system, such as data processing system  200  depicted in  FIG. 2 . To begin, data to be put into a Hex-A-Braille Glyph is received (step  602 ). The data to be put into a Hex-A-Braille Glyph may be any information desired for the particular application. For example, the data may be text, computer code, or inventory numbers for a product which may be in raw, compressed and/or encrypted format. Next, each data element representing the information desired to be represented as a Hex-A-Braille Glyph is converted into a hexadecimal format (step  604 ). The Hex-A-Braille image for each hexadecimal half byte of data is determined (step  606 ) by mapping each hexadecimal character to a unique set of darkened cells within a matrix of cells. A Hex-A-Braille Glyph of the information is then created by combining, in the proper order, the individual Hex-A-Braille images for each hexadecimal character (step  608 ). The resulting Hex-A-Braille Glyph is then output to an appropriate output medium, such as, for example, printed onto paper, stored in software, or displayed on a video display terminal (step  610 ). 
     With reference now to  FIG. 7 , a process flow and program function for reading a Hex-A-Braille Glyph is depicted in accordance with one embodiment of the present invention. This process, as with that depicted in  FIG. 6 , may be implemented, for example, as a set of computer readable instructions executed within a data processing system, such as data processing system  200  depicted in  FIG. 2 . To begin, a Hex-A-Braille Glyph is read (step  702 ). This may be performed, for example, by scanning an image of a Hex-A-Braille Glyph on a physical object or by decoding a Hex-A-Braille image within a web page displayed in a web browser. The Hexadecimal value of each Hex-A-Braille image is determined (step  704 ). Each pair of hexadecimal values is converted into a data element in a computer useable format (step  706 ) and the function(s) specified by the glyph and associated glyph reading software are performed (step  708 ). For example, the Hex-A-Braille Glyph may simply be a Universal Product Code (UPC) which is used by software in the reading computer to lookup, for example, pricing information corresponding to the UPC in a database of UPCs and associated prices. 
     In other examples, in a manufacturing context, glyphs could be printed on part labels or packaging materials. These glyphs could then be read by machines on a plant floor assembly line. The machine could then react based on the data or instructions contained within the glyph. In an office context, scanners, faxes, copiers, printers, multifunction devices, and other similar devices could be designed to interact with glyphs. In other examples of uses of Hex-A-Braille Glyphs, computer hardware and software can be developed to create, read and react to glyphs or other devices via such glyphs. For example, PCs could download programs from a document or web page in the format of a glyph. 
     In the security, banking, and finance areas, identification (ID) cards, smart cards, credit cards, and the like could have data encoded in a glyph which could be read and interpreted by a glyph reader. A photo could actually be encoded into a glyph rather than displayed in plain site. Readers could be used to display the photos to confirm identity. Furthermore, any existing barcode application could be replaced with more sophisticated Hex-A-Braille Glyphs. 
       FIGS. 8A–8D  depict tables illustrating mapping of ASCII characters to Hex-A-Braille format according to one embodiment of the present invention. Those skilled in the art will recognize that other mapping tables are possible that will also result in a mapping of an ASCII character to a unique Hex-A-Braille Glyph not shared by any other ASCII character. Additional data mappings such as Unicode to Hex-A-Braille are also possible. Also note that characters which are typically nonprintable such as ASCII character zero (null) are now given a visual representation with Hex-A-Braille. 
     It is important to note that while the present invention has been described in the context of a fully functioning data processing system, those of ordinary skill in the art will appreciate that the processes of the present invention are capable of being distributed in the form of a computer readable medium of instructions and a variety of forms and that the present invention applies equally regardless of the particular type of signal bearing media actually used to carry out the distribution. Examples of computer readable media include recordable-type media such a floppy disc, a hard disk drive, RAM, and CD-ROMs and transmission-type media such as digital and analog communications links. 
     The description of the present invention has been presented for purposes of illustration and description, but is not intended to be exhaustive or limited to the invention in the form disclosed. Many modifications and variations will be apparent to those of ordinary skill in the art. The embodiment was chosen and described in order to best explain the principles of the invention, the practical application, and to enable others of ordinary skill in the art to understand the invention for various embodiments with various modifications as are suited to the particular use contemplated.