We’re proud to reveal that Dynamsoft’s Dynamic .NET TWAIN 5.0 is on its way to release soon. In addition to WinForms support, the new version will include a WPF control. You can use it in your WPF app to capture images from TWAIN scanners and UVC/WIA webcams, to edit and save images to local disks, to a server or a database. Today, I’d like to cover how, using VB.NET, you can use the Dynamic .NET TWAIN 5.0 SDK to implement barcode reading in a WPF application.

The relevant source code can be downloaded here.

Barcode Demo

1.        Create a New WPF Project

First, start Visual Studio .NET, and create a new WPF project. Select Visual Basic as the type and choose WPF Application as the template.

2.        Add a Reference

Right-click on the project root, and select Add Reference… from the menu. Click Browse to locate DynamicDotNetTWAIN.dll and add it.

3.      Add Dynamic .NET TWAIN Component

If there is no Dynamic .NET TWAIN component available, you might need to open the toolbox. To do so, right-click on the panel and select Choose Items… Switch to the tab WPF Components and click Browse… to load DynamicDotNetTWAIN.Wpf.dll

4.         Add Buttons and Textbox

Next, you’ll want to drag two buttons and one textbox from the toolbox to design a form. The buttons are used to load an image and make the detection of a barcode. And, the textbox is used to display the information decoded from barcode.

5.         Code for Loading Image

Now, what you need to do is to acquire an image using the Windows standard API. Then you’ll need to load it using the Dynamic .NET TWAIN component method. Just a couple of lines of code are needed for loading an image. It’s pretty simple.

       Dim filedlg As OpenFileDialog
        filedlg = New OpenFileDialog()
        filedlg.Multiselect = True
       Dim strFilename As String
        If (filedlg.ShowDialog() = DialogResult.OK) Then
            For Each strFilename In filedlg.FileNames
                DynamicDotNetTwain1.LoadImage(strFilename)
            Next
        End If

6.         Code for Barcode Recognition

To decode a barcode, the path for the barcode library needs to be first be specified. Then, with one additional line of code, you’ll get results.

Set the path of barcode library

        Dim strDllFolder As String
        strDllFolder = Application.ExecutablePath
        Dim pos As Integer
        pos = strDllFolder.LastIndexOf("\Samples\")
        If (pos <> -1) Then
            strDllFolder = strDllFolder.Substring(0, strDllFolder.IndexOf("\", pos)) + "\Bin\BarcodeResources\"
        End If
        Me.DynamicDotNetTwain1.BarcodeDllPath = strDllFolder

Get the results and display them on screen

        Me.TextBox1.Text = ""
        Dim aryResult() As Result
        aryResult = Me.DynamicDotNetTwain1.ReadBarcode(Me.DynamicDotNetTwain1.CurrentImageIndexInBuffer, BarcodeFormat.All)
        Dim strText As StringBuilder
        strText = New StringBuilder()
        If aryResult.Length = 1 Then
            strText.AppendFormat(aryResult.Length & " total barcode" & ("") & " found." & Constants.vbCrLf)
        Else
            strText.AppendFormat(aryResult.Length & " total barcode" & ("s") & " found." & Constants.vbCrLf)
        End If
        For i As Integer = 0 To aryResult.Length - 1
            Dim objResult As Result
            objResult = aryResult(i)
            strText.AppendFormat("      Result " & (i + 1) & Constants.vbCrLf)
            strText.AppendFormat("      BarcodeFormat: " & objResult.BarcodeFormat.ToString() & Constants.vbCrLf)
            strText.AppendFormat("      Text read: " & objResult.Text & Constants.vbCrLf)
        Next i
        Me.TextBox1.Text = strText.ToString()

I hope this brief tutorial is helpful to anyone who is looking for a .NET barcode reader SDK in VB.NET.

For further inquiries, please feel free to send me an email at kgao[at]dynamsoft.com.

Dynamic .NET TWAIN 5.0 is scheduled to be released late next month. To stay informed about all our product announcements, blog posts and more, be sure to follow us on Twitter, like us on Facebook or add us on Google+. Also, if you’d like to be amongst the first to try out the new version first, please contact support[at]dynamsoft.com.