v2.0.0

2.0.0

• iOS updates:
  • Implemented PPCameraCoordinator. PPCameraCoordinator assumes the role of PPCoordinator from previous versions while new PPCoordinator is used for Direct API (image processing without camera out management).
  • Increased speed of scanning for barcode type recognizers.
  • Implemented PPImage. When using Direct API you can wrap UIImage and CMSampleBufferRef into PPImage to ensure optimal performance.
  • Improved performance of Direct API. In addition, you can now use Direct API with your own camera management without any performance drawbacks.
  • Added method isCameraPaused to PPScanningViewController.
  • Added option to fllip input images upside down for processing with cameraFlipped property of PPCameraSettings.
  • Implemented PPViewControllerFactory for managing creation of PPScanningViewController objects.
  • PPImageMetadata now contains PPImageMetadataType property, which describes which image type was outputted.
  • Added VIN (Vehicle idendification number) parser.
  • Mirrored (both horizontally and vertically) images can now be processed by setting PPScanSettings/PPImage properties (latter if using custom camera management).
• Implemented templating API
  • Templating API allows creation of custom document scanners, linking specific parsers to specific locations on detected documents
• iOS bugfixes:
  • New Direct API fixed possible deadlocks when sending large amounts of data

v1.2.0

• iOS bugfixes:
  • fixed potential deadlock when multiple instances of PPCoordinator objects are instantiated
• Implemented templating API
  • Templating API allows implementing custom document scanners, linking specific parsers to specific locations on detected documents
• Added Regex parser
  • Regex parser allows you to create your custom ocr parser factory
• PPOverlayViewController changed the way Overlay Subviews are added to the view hierarchy. Instead of calling addOverlaySubview: (which automatically added a view to view hierarachy), you now need to call registerOverlaySubview: (which registers subview for scanning events), and manually add subview to view hierarchy using addSubview: method. This change gives you more flexibility for adding views and managing autolayout and autoresizing masks.
• Better Swift interoperability
  • Support for modules
  • Added nullability annotations
• Framework is now distributed as a .framework + .bundle, instead of .embeddedframework. This helps keep resources in a separate "namespace", and avoids mistakes
• The library inside the framework is now static library. This makes it easier to include the library inside other libraries
• Added bitcode support for Xcode 7

v1.1.1

• Added support for using BlinkOCR as a camera capture API. To do that, implement the following
  • When initializing the PPCoordinator object, don't add any PPRecognizerSettings to scanSettings.
  • Use settings.metadataSettings.currentVideoFrame = YES to capture current camera frame
  • Implement scanningViewController:didOutputMetadata: callback to obtain PPImageMetadata objects with camera frames.
• As a reminder - you can process video frames obtained in that way using direct API method processImage:scanningRegion:delegate:

v1.1.0

• Added support for Barcode recognition using the following recognizers:
  • PPPdf417Recognizer for scanning PDF417 barcodes
  • PPBarDecoderRecognizer for Code 39 and Code 128 1D barcodes
  • PPZXingRecognizer for all other 1D and 2D barcode types
• Barcode scanning can be used at the same time with OCR scanning, or completely separate. Use different scanSettings.
• Improved video frame quality detection: now only the sharpest and the most focused frames are being processed. This improves quality of the results, but at a slight expense of processing time
• Frame quality estimation can now be enabled using PPScanSettings frameQualityEstimationMode property:
  • when set to PPFrameQualityEstimationModeOn, frame quality estimation is always enabled
  • when set to PPFrameQualityEstimationModeOff, frame quality estimation is always disabled
  • when set to PPFrameQualityEstimationModeDefault, frame quality estimation is enabled internally, if the SDK determines it makes sense
• iOS 9 introduced new app multitasking features Split View and Slide Over. When the scanner is on screen and one of those features are used, iOS automatically pauses the Camera (this behaviour is default as of iOS 9 beta 5). This SDK version introduces new setting in PPUISettings class, called cameraPausedView, where you can define the UIView which is presented centered on screen when this happens.
• Known issue on iOS 9: if you use Autorotate overlay feature (settings.uiSetttings.autorotateOverlay), present PPScanningViewController as a modal view controller, and support Split View iOS 9 feature, then autorotation of camera overlays isn't correct. The best way is to opt-out of Split View feature, and wait for SDK fix when iOS 9 comes out of beta.
• PPScanningViewController methods pauseScanning, isScanningPaused, and resumeScanningAndResetState: should now be called only from Main thread, and they are effective immediately. E.g., if pauseScanning is called and there is a video frame being processed, result of processing of that frame will be discarded, if resumeScanningAndResetState: isn't called in the meantime.
• Added support for PPCameraPresetPhoto camera preset. Use this if you need the same zoom level as in iOS Camera app. The resolution for video feed when using this preset is the same as devices screen resolution.

v1.0.0

First official BlinkOCR SDK release

• Real time video and image OCR on mobile devices!

What's new to 1.0.0:

• BlinkOCR now supports several new fonts, which especially benefit receipt scanning use case.
  • Use them by specifying a whitelist of CharKeys in PPOcrEngineOptions
  • New fonts are:
    • PP_OCR_FONT_CHAINPRINTER
    • PP_OCR_FONT_HYPERMARKET
    • PP_OCR_FONT_PRINTF
    • PP_OCR_FONT_TICKET_DE_CAISSE
• You can now access two more properties of PPOcrChar objects
  • font - to get information about the font of the char
  • variants - to get a set of all alternative values for a specific char (note: a variant is defined as a combination of a unicode value + font, so there might be the same characters multiple times in the variants set - each time with different font)
• PPOcrEngineOptions now have the ability to turn off line grouping (collecting adjacent chars into lines) with lineGroupingEnabled property.
• Changes in Direct processing API
  • You are no longer required to call PPCoordinator initializeRecognizers and PPCoordinator terminateRecognizers.
  • Instead, initializeRecognizers is called lazily on first call of processImage method.
  • terminateRecognizers is called automatically in PPCoordinator destructor
• Added support for autorotation of PPScanningViewController. To support autorotation, use PPScanningViewController's new properties autorotate and supportedOrientations
• countless tweaks and fixes in OCR engine