I tried looking at some posts already posted but it did not help me
What I want to do
Use an SDK (preferably in java) to use in my own application
Scan fingerprints and save them as an image format (bmp,jpg or other)
If possible count ridges of the fingerprint (but this is secondary)
I was looking into different vendors/sdk such as
Digitalpersona
Futronic
Griaulebiometrics -> Griaule AFIS Fingerprint
OpenCV
SourceAFIS
Does one have experience to use any or few of them and which one should I will be able to use for my purpose
I understand SDK may be vendor specific and will be used for their hardware only or is there any other way I can just scan fingerprint and store as images?
You'll need to clarify your requirements before someone can recommend the best SDK for what you want to do. I'm not quite current on opencv modules but that and SourceAFIS have the benefit of being free at any project scale. AFAIK all the others are provided basically on a trial basis by biometric vendors who will eventually want you to purchase a license for every end user.
That being said any biometric scanner vendor should provide you (for free) with device drivers to get an image from their scanner. Typically you'll have to modify some sample C code to do what you're talking about, and without JNI it will likely be impossible to get a scan directly into Java. In my experience it's pretty easy to use a vendor SDK to dump an image into a BMP, so you shouldn't be discouraged even if your C skills are minimal. Of the scanner companies you mention I know that the Futronics sample application is quite simple to adapt to the kind of image acquisition you're looking for, and their basic scanners are cheap and robust.
Related
Let's say I have a USB magnetic card reader
(http://image.ec21.com/image/szttce09/oimg_GC03950917_CA03950946/Triple_Track_USB_Magnetic_Credit_Card_Reader.jpg)
I am running windows 10 on my machine. All I want to do is read data from the magnetic card and use that data in a java Application. How can I do this ? I heard the java communications api is suitable for what I want. How exactly do I use this api or any other api to read data from the card reader and show that data in my java application. Assume I have eclipse opened. Now what? Do I import the communications api ? If yes , what do I do next ? If you can give a simple example of how to do this it would be greatly appreciated.
The first thing to do is search the internet for a Java library, which allows you to communicate with that device. Put in the model and serial number, and see what comes up. If nothing comes up, and that is quite likely to happen, you will need to find the native driver, and wrap it in Java.
This is not normally a straight forward or easy process. When dealing with third party hardware, most vendors don't supply a little Java library that you can use. If you can find the native drivers, you can wrap them from C to Java, but you might not even be able to find the drivers at all.
Start by going to the manufacturer's page, and looking around. If you find the driver, great. If you find documentation for the driver, even better. You will need to read the documentation, and understand how to use the driver from C code, which implicitly requires you to have a basic understanding of C.
Then you will need to link it in to Java, using the Java Native Interface.
In Summary: If it didn't say "For Java developers" in the description when you bought it, you're going to have to do a lot of work just to get it usable in Java.
I'm not sure if this question is entirely appropriate for SO but it seemed to work better here than in SuperUser so apologies if its in the wrong place. Happy to move it if so.
I'm trying to figure out how I'd automate the input of data into a system that didn't accept data uploads, but rather used forms put up on a screen. Use cases are e.g. where an enterprise wide system does accept uploads but the user lacks admin rights to fill in data she is required to populate, or with very old and specialized legacy systems where the functionality just doesn't exist and a serial input-review-rollback-commit cycle is enforced.
I'm not a programmer by trade so this is partly thought experiment but also to answer a question that has arisen at a business that I'm involved in.
I'm reasonably familiar with python and java if libraries for keyboard emulation exist but would be happy interpreting a pseudo code response too.
Responses that point to existing providers of such functionality that is embeddable or that tell me if I'm barking up the wrong tree also gratefully accepted.
Once again apologies as I know this isnt intuitively the best spot for this. Please do point me to a better location if you know of one.
Thanks
Possible solutions exist but they're all pretty bad
Is it a desktop application or a web application? If it's a web application you can use ghost.py to automate the interaction and submission of new records/entries. This work will be a glorious bundle of fun for the lucky code jockey who draws the short straw.
If it's a desktop application, it will be a great deal more difficult. Is it on Windows? Linux? MacOSX? Is the software written in Java? Using the Swing toolkit? AWT? SWT?
If it is a native Windows application you might be able to use Autohotkey to automate desktop interaction. This can be as basic as automatic clicks in pre-recorded parts of the screen, automating TAB keypresses to move around the input cells and reading input text from a data file and writing that out into the input cells. This will be even more entertaining than the web-solution mentioned earlier: truly the necessary ingredients for an authentic war story worthy of the annals of internet lore.
This is likely to be a lot of intricate work, error-prone, and subject to failure in the future if the UI of the software is changed; and such changes are very likely. It would be a lot easier to help if you could add more detail to the question.
Before embarking down this road, if I were you I would beg and plead with the software vendor to either provide me with an upload API; I would even offer to pay the vendor to upload my data for me. I cannot imagine either of the solutions I mentioned will be any cheaper, unless the work time of your developers has no value.
Good luck.
I have an idea for a GUI application, however it needs a set of technologies that i do not use frequently (as such i am a bit of a novice here, apologies if this is stupid!).
I want a 3D Earth Model, (like google earth, the actual look to be like the terrain overlay in google maps (I don't care about roads, just height & position)). Like google maps & google earth i will wish to add my custom tracks & locations & boundaries; and move / pan / tilt etc...
I cannot however be continually connected to the internet. So i will need a 1 time download of terrain/geodata before i startup the program. (Can this be done as a single kml dataset ? (Is that even correct?) i guess i would need a 'local map server' instead of an internet connection?)
I will need to use a precompiled language (preferably java) to actually write the program in. (Scripting / Javascript is not acceptable) Can i interface Java & KML using an existing library ?
Is it possible to reproduce the google maps 'map window' with the terrain imaging in 3rd party software ? (Can i pull this from open source somewhere?)
Everything you want to do is possible -- however -- let me preface this by saying that it will be a long, difficult journey.
Let's start with the easy thing: you can load your data as KML, it will show up as a layer in Google Earth, and you'll be able to turn it on and off. You'll also be able to turn off default layers (roads, etc) either programmatically or via the GUI.
I would use Google Earth (the web plugin thing) tied to a C# application. You do not want to use the old Google Earth COM API. It was deprecated by Google as of GE 6, and was truly a terrible thing to work with. Java could also work, but I prefer C# development. In either case, you can use the language's ability to call into the Google Earth API directly.
Here's a good example (C#). It's GNU/GPL, so it may work as a base for your app:
http://code.google.com/p/winforms-geplugin-control-library/
Essentially, you load a Google Earth web page in a WebBrowser control, which allows you to manage it directly. Actually interfacing with the web page is the hard part (but still easier than the COM API!) -- hopefully you can use the control library linked above to get a feel for how it works.
As for your internet connectivity issue: yes -- Google Earth (even the web plugin) supports caching. The exact amount of cache that is allowed is ~100 MB. Exactly what goes in the cache is a complete mystery. The 100MB limit won't get you very far -- but you can create larger caches (up to 2GB) using the full Google Earth app. These caches work with the web browser plugin, you just have to copy the database file into the Google Earth application data directory (and rename the file I think -- the plugin appends a 0 or something to the file name.) The process for creating a cache is simple -- fly around the area in question at the altitude you'd like. There are tools to help automate this, such as:
http://bx11.110mb.com/gecacher.htm
Note that caching Google's data isn't exactly what they'd like you to do. So please keep in mind that you'll need to fully review the EULA to make sure you're not violating it...
Good luck! I've been working with GE in a large app for ~3 years; It's definitely a fun thing to work with and can make your application really stand out.
I am a final year student, i am trying to provide higher level of security at web login time for clients. So, i am looking for fingerprint authentication. Which means, wherever client wants to login he/she has to login using his/her fingerprint. (Assuming client is using digital persona personal fingerprint reader for finger scan). So, is it possible...? if it is, then how..?? Because, i googled my problem , but didn't get helpful material to implement on my project.
Unless your fingerprint reader specifically has support for this functionality, chances are that it's not possible. As a general rule, web pages are intentionally prevented from having direct access to hardware.
Also, see the comments on Online fingerprint authentication for some reasons why fingerprint authentication may not be quite so awesome as it sounds.
If you can access the fingerprint scanner from Java in the browser security context, then you could use Digital Persona's drivers. A problem may arise in that you will likely not be able to access the scanner from the browsers security context without the blessing of the user. Additionally, the Digital Persona drivers may require that you install extra software on the client's machine.
You would need:
A fingerprint capturing device (something like 30 USD to a few hundred USD depending on the spec)
A fingerprint matching SDK (download one that is in the public domain here)
Then you write:
Client code that captures and submits fingerprint images.
Server code that receives a person's fingerprint image at registration, converts that into minutiae data, checks that quality of the image/minutiae to make sure the fingerprint minutiae is usable, then stores it in the DB.
Receives a person's fingerprint image at login, converts that into minutiae data and matches that with the fingerprint in the DB by calling the matching library. Usually you will get a matching score back, with which you can decide whether you consider it the same identity by using a threshold (if score > threshold then authenticate, etc.)
That's the basic idea. The link I provided should have all the libraries you need. Note also that you might need to process the image captured by the capturing device so that you can use it with the libraries.
Biometrics isn't easy. Even if you have the libraries, you can't just use them without careful planning/tuning etc. So it's not like you are good to go to build a production app. just because you have these libraries. It's quite different from say, using Hibernate as a library. So if you are just interested in quickly adding this functionality on your app., you should reconsider because it will take a lot of work to make this work. If you are prepared to understand how these libraries work, play around with image processing, learn about biometrics etc., then it might be fun :)
There are probably libraries out there that you can buy (probably together with the capturing hardware) which will make this process much easier, but they are very expensive.
I am trying to make an application in which one component captures the screen of the user (for screen casting). I am aware that there are two options to achieve the same using a Java applet (please correct me if I am wrong). First is to use the java applet to take screen shots continuously and convert it into a video and upload it as a video file. And second is to create a java vnc server and record it as a .fbs file and play it using a player like: http://www.wizhelp.com/flashlight-vnc/index.html
I would like to know the best solution in terms of video quality, file size, cross-platform compatibility (windows and mac), firewall problems and finally ease of implementation.
I am very new to Java. Please tell me whats the best solution for my problem. Also, is it easy enough for me to program it on my own or should I get it developed via a freelancer. I have tons of programming experience (5+ years in LAMP) but none in Java.
Thank you very much.
I agree that this is pretty hard. I implemented those two solutions (VNC and onboard screen capture) plus a third (capture from an external VGA source via an Epiphan grabber) for a former employer. I had the best bandwidth-to-quality ratio with VNC, but I got higher framerate with VGA capture. In all three cases, I reduced the frames + capture times to PNGs and sequenced them in a QuickTime reference movie. Then I made flattened video (MPEG4 or SWF) of the results. In my case, I then synchronized the screen video with a DV stream.
In the end the technology worked (see a sample of the output) but our business model failed.
From what I know, the older versions of applet had security restrictions that may not allow for screen capture. Instead, a java application may be feasible.
Regarding the build-it-yourself vs the fire-a-coder, it depends on how you value your time compared to what you can find on a freelancer site.
I think you can find someone from India/Romania/Poland/Other countries that can make it for an affordable price
Given your Java knowledge and the difficulty of the task, have you considered taking an alternative approach? For example, how about a native VNC server for the end-user, which is just a small download and then they click "Run." And that native server is programmed to capture the screen and send it straight to your web server, which has a client like vnc2swf or other means of converting the VNC stream to a video or .fbs file? Does all that make sense?
Admittedly, without Java, you have to prepare one executable program per platform you want to support, however, I don't know. That still sounds easier to me. Consider Copilot.com. They are doing VNC but they still use small native apps for each platform.
Sorry but this seems the kind of job that requires a lot of experience. Even if you find code snippets all around the net to fix this and that, the overall result may be way worse than simply hiring an experienced Java programmer.