In the not-so-distant past, manufacturers using laser scanners and conventional area-scan image-based readers had to put up with inherent technology limitations. Laser scanners, for example, have a hard time reading bar codes through plastic shrink-wrap, bar codes printed on flexible material such as plastic bags, and damaged bar codes. When reading 2-D bar codes, manufacturers had to turn to conventional area-scan image-based readers, which come with depth-of-field limitations that make it difficult to read codes without controlling the distance between the bar code and the reader.

Thanks to area-scan image-based readers powered by Vision System on Chip (VSoC) technology, those days are over. With its high speed, large depth of field, extremely high read rates, ability to handle damaged codes, omnidirectional reading, and multicode and 2-D symbol reading capability, this next generation of image-based readers has the potential to make life easier for manufacturers.

How laser scanners read

In the past, manufacturers have had two main categories to choose from when solving ID challenges: laser scanners and conventional image-based readers.

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