A Quick Response Code Beautification Method Based on Saliency Weighted Random Optimization

With the development of smart phones and mobile internet, Quick Response (QR) codes are widely applied to mobile information interaction. However, the appearance of the standard QR code is similar to the noise signal. It is lack of visual aesthetics, easy to damage the overall aesthetic of the publicity materials so that the promotional effect will be affected. To solve this problem, this paper proposes a beautification approach for embedding a color image in a QR code. At first, the method processes the given color image with saliency detection and halftoning techniques to acquire the corresponding saliency image and halftone image. Then, the modules distribution of QR code is optimized by according to the halftone image. In order to improve the optimization efficiency, a saliency weighted random sampling algorithm is proposed. Finally, a binary search based color adjustment algorithm is proposed in color rendering. Experimental results show that the color QR code generated by the proposed method can be correctly decoded. At the same time, it improves the visual appearance, increases the visual aesthetics, and possesses more visual appeal.