AR-Assisted Search And Find

Get Started With MatrixScan Find

What is MatrixScan Find?

MatrixScan Find is a pre-built UI that uses augmented reality overlays to highlight items that match predefined criteria. Whereas MatrixScan AR is fully customizable, MatrixScan Find is a pre-built solution that allows you to add a search and find experience with augmented reality to an existing native app, with just a few lines of code.

UI Overview

MatrixScan Find is inspired by the familiar paradigm of a camera, including a shutter button that the user operates in order to control search.
It highlights items with obvious and colorful visual dots on screen.
When paused, MatrixScan Find showcases a carousel showing all the items that are currently being searched for, with a check mark showing those that have been found.
When in active search mode, the carousel is hidden to free up more screen space for tracking items.
The Quick Start Guide takes you through the process to install the full UI. However, you can then customize it by choosing to remove any elements on the screen except for the AR overlays. This allows you to create custom UIs suitable for your own workflows.

MatrixScan Find is implemented through functionality provided by SDCBarcodeFind.

Requirements

The Scandit Data Capture SDK. Check out this guide.
A valid Scandit Data Capture SDK license key including MatrixScan AR add-on. You can sign up for a free test account at ssl.scandit.com.

Supported Devices

Runs on iOS and Android devices. Contact support for more details.

Supported Symbologies

MatrixScan Find supports all symbologies except DotCode, MaxiCode and postal codes (KIX, RM4SCC).

Quick Start Guide

MatrixScan Find is composed of two elements:

Barcode Find: a data capture mode that implements search and find functionality.
Barcode Find View: a pre-built UI that uses the mode to highlight found items.

In this guide you will learn step by step how to add Barcode Find and Barcode Find View to your application.

The steps are:

Create a new Data Capture Context instance.
Configure the Barcode Find Mode.
Setup the BarcodeFindView.
Register a listener to be notified with found items
Start searching

1. Create a new Data Capture Context instance

The first step to add find capabilities to your application is to create a new SDCDataCaptureContext. The context expects a valid Scandit Data Capture SDK license key during construction.

self.context = DataCaptureContext(licenseKey: "-- ENTER YOUR SCANDIT LICENSE KEY HERE --")

2. Configure the Barcode Find Mode

The main entry point for the Barcode Find Mode is the SDCBarcodeFind object. You can configure the supported Symbologies through its SDCBarcodeFindSettings, and set up the list of items that you want MatrixScan Find to highlight (e.g. a list of products).

For this tutorial, we will set up Barcode Find for tracking EAN13 codes. Change this to the correct symbologies for your use case (e.g. Code 128, Code 39…).

First create the settings:

let settings = BarcodeFindSettings()
settings.set(symbology: .ean13UPCA, enabled: true)

Then you have to create the list of items that will be actively searched for.

In this tutorial, let’s look up two items based on their EAN13 codes. We will attach to the first item some optional information that can be used by the BarcodeFindView to display extra information.

var items = Set<BarcodeFindItem>()
items.insert(BarcodeFindItem(
    searchOptions: BarcodeFindItemSearchOptions(barcodeData: "9783598215438"),
    content: BarcodeFindItemContent(
        info: "Mini Screwdriver Set",
        additionalInfo: "(6-Piece)",
        image: nil)
))
items.insert(BarcodeFindItem(
    searchOptions: BarcodeFindItemSearchOptions(barcodeData: "9783598215414"),
    content: nil // Content information is optional, used for display only
))

Create the mode with the previously created settings and set the items:

let mode = BarcodeFind(settings: settings)
mode.setItemList(items)

3. Setup the BarcodeFindView

MatrixScan Find’s built-in AR user interface includes buttons and overlays that guide the user through the searching process. By adding a SDCBarcodeFindView, the scanning interface (camera preview and searching UI elements) will be added automatically to your application.

The BarcodeFindView appearance can be customized through SDCBarcodeFindViewSettings:

Colors of dots in augmented reality overlay
Enable sound and haptic alerts

let viewSettings = BarcodeFindViewSettings()
// setup the desired appearance settings by updating the fields in the object above

Construct a new BarcodeFindView. The BarcodeFindView is automatically added to the provided parent view.

let barcodeFindView = BarcodeFindView(parentView: view, context: context, barcodeFind: mode, settings: viewSettings)

Connect the BarcodeFindView to the iOS view controller lifecycle. In particular, make sure to call BarcodeFindView.prepareSearching() on your UIViewController’s viewWillAppear method to make sure that start up time is optimal.

override func viewWillAppear(_ animated: Bool) {
    super.viewWillAppear(animated)
    barcodeFindView.prepareSearching()
}

override func viewWillDisappear(_ animated: Bool) {
    super.viewWillDisappear(animated)
    barcodeFindView.stopSearching()
}

4. Register a listener to be notified with found items

The BarcodeFindView displays next to its shutter button a handy “finish” button. Register a SDCBarcodeFindViewUIDelegate to be notified what items have been found once the finish button is pressed.

In this tutorial, we will then navigate back to the previous screen to finish the find session.

barcodeFindView.uiDelegate = self

extension ViewController: BarcodeFindViewUIDelegate {
    func barcodeFindView(_ view: BarcodeFindView,
                        didTapFinishButton foundItems: Set<BarcodeFindItem>) {
        navigationController?.popViewController(animated: true)
    }
}

5. Start searching

As soon as everything is set up, control the SDCBarcodeFindView to start the search.

override func viewDidAppear(_ animated: Bool) {
    super.viewDidAppear(animated)
    barcodeFindView.startSearching()
}

This is the equivalent of pressing the “Play” button programmatically. It will start the search process, turn on the camera and hide the item carousel.

Samples

The best way to start working with the Scandit Data Capture SDK is to run one of our sample apps. See the full list of available samples.

Advanced Settings

Set up a listener on the BarcodeFind mode

You may want more fine-grained knowledge over the different events happening during the life of the BarcodeFind mode, such as when the search starts, pauses and stops. To do this, you can directly register a SDCBarcodeFindListener on the mode itself.

Be aware that these listeners will be called from a background thread.

mode.addListener(self)

extension PlaygroundViewController: BarcodeFindListener {
    func barcodeFind(_ barcodeFind: BarcodeFind,
                     didPauseSearch foundItems: Set<BarcodeFindItem>) {
        // The mode was paused
    }

    func barcodeFindDidStartSearch(_ barcodeFind: BarcodeFind) {
        // The mode was started
    }

    func barcodeFind(_ barcodeFind: BarcodeFind,
                     didStopSearch foundItems: Set<BarcodeFindItem>) {
        // The mode was stopped
    }
}

Set up a transformation

Sometimes, the barcode data needs to be transformed. For example, if the barcode contains the product identifier and other information, when a product is scanned, the barcode data is first parsed (via a transformation) and then the input list is checked.

First conform to the SDCBarcodeFindTransformer protocol. For example, if you want to only consider the first 5 characters:

class Transformer: NSObject, BarcodeFindTransformer {
    func transformBarcodeData(_ data: String) -> String? {
        return String(data.prefix(5))
    }
}

Then the tranformer needs to be set so it can be used by Barcode Find:

barcodeFind.setBarcodeTransformer(Transformer())

UI configuration

The SDCBarcodeFindView will by default show a set of UI elements, which can be optionally hidden:

A play/pause button
A finish button
A searched items carousel
Guidance hints

There is also a progress bar but this is hidden by default.

Each of these elements can be shown or hidden at will.

barcodeFindView.shouldShowCarousel = false
barcodeFindView.shouldShowProgressBar = true
// …