Add-on Image Catcher 2 for automatic image acquisition for fashion

With the aim of helping all companies that have physical products for sale and therefore the need to create a product catalog, we have developed a system that, through framing with smart barcode camera, associates the photo to the product in the relevant card, automating image capture, cataloging, and archiving on servers.

PRODUCT CATALOG

Companies with physical products for sale, especially the ones in the fashion and retail industry, periodically need to acquire a large number of images in order to create their product catalog [or internal manuals of other kind for the sales force or other users].

All images must be properly catalogued and stored inside the company’s IT systems.


WHY OPTIMIZE THIS PROCESS?

The traditional process involved a series of steps that followed as follows:

  1. Manual photo shoot on products
  2. Download captured images to PC
  3. Manual revision of images
  4. Acquisition of the product information
  5. Manual renaming
  6. Creating folders on the server
  7. Possible manual transfer to network folders


The images revision phase, as well as the renaming phase, are extremely long and highly risky: think, for example, if a name is wrong for a character or an image is inserted in the folder of an incorrect product. These types of errors are virtually unrecoverable for their extreme difficulty in detecting them.


THE ANSWER

SYSDAT IMAGE CATCHER 2 optimize the whole acquisition process, minimizing time and setting the risk of error to zero.


THE OPTIMIZED PROCESS

Complete review of the previous business process.

  1. Product barcode framing with a smart camera
  2. Sending information to the server, which returns the product
  3. The correct produt specifications are identified
  4. Real-time review of snapshot
  5. Automatic association of photo to the right product
  6. Automatic renaming and archiving on the server


THE BENEFITS

The operator’s manual intervention is minimal: it is limited, in fact, to the acquisition of images only; the association between images and products, and their nomenclature is made automatically by the system.

With this solution, times are drastically reduced as well as the probability of classification error due to wrong nomenclature or images inserted in wrong folders. This probability is 0. The only risk factor is that the user takes the picture of the wrong product.

A Smart Camera with Android operating system is used, so as to offer a quality photographic device easily customizable according to customer needs.

THE TECHNOLOGY

The system combines different technologies and applications:

  • Mobile application for data acquisition
  • Web Services for communication
  • Server-side application for data management


Smart cameras require Android OS. Other devices allow the use of other operating systems such as iOS, Windows 8 or multiplatform systems. The web application and the Web Services can be developed in .NET, Java or any other technology.


SYSTEMS FUNCTIONS | SMART CAMERA

  • Reading of barcodes: the smart camera reads barcodes and extrapolates content to find information on the related product
  • Image capture: the smart camera captures images of the products and provides appropriate metadata (retrieved with barcode reading). The main shooting settings can be changed as required (aperture, ISO, shutter speed, white balance, flash). Once acquired and completed with the metadata, the image is saved on an internal archive of the smart camera
  • Sending images to the central server: the smart camera sends the images to the central server for storage in two possible ways:

        - in real time, as soon as they are acquired (the images are not stored in

          the camera)

       - in deferred time (the images are sent at a later time, manually)

  • Management of scanned images: the images can be reviewed and possibly deleted
  • Management of the send queue: images from the send queue can be added or removed before activating the transfer function


SYSTEM FUNCTIONS | SERVER .NET

The Smart Camera uses REST methods to store pictures taken automatically on a server.

The Smart Camera automatically recognizes the barcode of the article and the photographs are stored in a logic that takes into account the parameters "season", "event" and "category".

  • Retrieving information relating to products in a category: info is retrieved through a barcode
  • Recovery of the description of all "special events" in progress
  • Saving a product photo: the photo is saved in the appropriate file system according to "season", "event", "category" and "line style"
  • Saving a photo product associated with a particular "special event"
  • Saving a photo associated with a product barcode: the photo is saved in the file system to the appropriate location according to "season", "event" and "category"; the related information is automatically extracted from the barcode.
Share by: