QRnet: fast learning-based QR code image embedding

Quick Response (QR) codes usage in e-commerce is on the rise due to their versatility and ability to connect offline and online content, taking over almost every aspect of a business from posters to payments. Thus, many efforts have aimed at improving the visual quality of QR codes to be easily included in publicity designs in billboards and magazines. The most successful approaches, however, are slow since optimization algorithms are required for the generation of each beautified QR code, hindering its online customization. The aim of this paper is the fast generation of visually pleasant and robust QR codes. The proposed framework leverages state-of-the-art deep-learning algorithms to embed a color image into a baseline QR code in seconds while keeping a maximum probability of error during the decoding procedure. Halftoning techniques that exploit the human visual system (HVS) are used to smooth the embedding of the QR code structure in the final QR code image while reinforcing the decoding robustness. Compared to optimization-based methods, our framework provides similar qualitative results but is 3 orders of magnitude faster.