Create a QR-Code Image with the php imagick library

Question

Hi,

We are using imagick for different image manipulations and have a request to add QR watermarks in the end.

Right now I could only find PHP QR Code library which uses the GD2 library:

Implemented purely in PHP, no external dependencies except GD2

Is there any php snippet or library which uses imagick to create QR codes?

Answer 1

Looking at the PHP QR Code library, there is only one file (I think) that accesses the GD library: qrimage.php. So change that file to output via imagick and use the rest of PHP QR Code.

Below is a possible imagick output file I wrote to replace qrimage.php. However, I am unable to test this code, since I am on Windows, and cannot install imagick.

Can someone please debug it, and edit this post with any corrections?

<?php
/*
 * PHP QR Code encoder
 *
 * Image output of code using GD2
 *
 * PHP QR Code is distributed under LGPL 3
 * Copyright (C) 2010 Dominik Dzienia <deltalab at poczta dot fm>
 *
 * This library is free software; you can redistribute it and/or
 * modify it under the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public
 * License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either
 * version 3 of the License, or any later version.
 *
 * This library is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
 * but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
 * MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU
 * Lesser General Public License for more details.
 *
 * You should have received a copy of the GNU Lesser General Public
 * License along with this library; if not, write to the Free Software
 * Foundation, Inc., 51 Franklin St, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA 02110-1301 USA
 */

    define('QR_IMAGE', true);

    class QRimage {

        //----------------------------------------------------------------------
        public static function png($frame, $filename = false, $pixelPerPoint = 4, $outerFrame = 4,$saveandprint=FALSE) 
        {
            $image = self::image($frame, $pixelPerPoint, $outerFrame, "png", 85, $filename, $saveandprint);
        }

        //----------------------------------------------------------------------
        public static function jpg($frame, $filename = false, $pixelPerPoint = 8, $outerFrame = 4, $q = 85) 
        {
            $image = self::image($frame, $pixelPerPoint, $outerFrame, "jpeg", $q, $filename, $saveandprint);
        }

        //----------------------------------------------------------------------
        private static function image($frame, $pixelPerPoint = 4, $outerFrame = 4, 
            $format = "png", $quality = 85, $filename = FALSE, $saveandprint = FALSE) 
        {
            $imgH = count($frame);
            $imgW = strlen($frame[0]);

            $col[0] = new ImagickPixel("white");
            $col[1] = new ImagickPixel("black");

            $image = new Imagick();
            $image->newImage($imgW, $imgH, $col[0]);

            $image->setCompressionQuality($quality);
            $image->setImageFormat($format); 

            $draw = new ImagickDraw();
            $draw->setFillColor($col[1]);

            for($y=0; $y<$imgH; $y++) {
                for($x=0; $x<$imgW; $x++) {
                    if ($frame[$y][$x] == '1') {
                        $draw->point($x,$y); 
                    }
                }
            }

            $image->drawImage($draw);
            $image->borderImage($col[0],$outerFrame,$outerFrame);
            $image->scaleImage( $imgW * $pixelPerPoint, 0 );

            if ($filename === FALSE) {
                Header("Content-type: image/jpeg");
                echo $image;
            } else {
                if($saveandprint===TRUE){
                    $image->writeImages($filename, true);        
                    Header("Content-type: image/" . $format);
                    echo $image;
                } else {
                    echo $image;
                }
            }
        }    
    }

There is a merged file called phpqrcode.php that contains the entire qrimage.php, so you will either have to remerge that file, or else replace the relevant section.

If you use a different filename for the above code, you will have to change the reference in the file qrlib.php and merge.php.

Answer 2

I tested the above implementation and it worked. There is one mistake : you missed to add the outerframe in the final image size.

$image->scaleImage( ($imgW + 2*$outerFrame) * $pixelPerPoint, 0 );

Also, it seems that GD library is a lot faster than ImageMagick in this case.

I benched the use of GD and imagick on the creation of the same 50 random qr codes. I isolated the part were QR code are generated so in fact the use of QRimage::png.

I only teste png generation. These are my results :

GD :

• min time : 0,0148401260 s
• max time : 0,0211210251 s
• average : 0,0167747593 s

ImageMagick :

• min time : 0,0799968243 s
• max time : 0,1147611141 s
• average : 0,0918840790 s

In the final code, this makes a little difference. The other part of the code takes something like 0.15s to run and on a large amount of codes it makes a difference (I benched QRcode::png with a result like : 0.17s per qrcode ith GD and 0.24s per code with imagemagick).