{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,6,16]],"date-time":"2026-06-16T12:46:33Z","timestamp":1781613993482,"version":"3.54.5"},"reference-count":21,"publisher":"MDPI AG","issue":"12","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2021,12,18]],"date-time":"2021-12-18T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1639785600000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"funder":[{"name":"Fujian Province Science and Technology Association","award":["2019J01087"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["2019J01087"]}]}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["Symmetry"],"abstract":"<jats:p>A multi-purpose image-based QR code is designed in this paper. There are four purposes for the generated image-based QR code. In the first purpose, the basic image-based QR code with the look of a host image is with an ingenious layout to be identified easier. In the second one, a saliency region detection method is adopted for enhancing the quality of the image-based QR code. In the third one, the host image is embedded into the image-based QR code for further access to the host image; Finally, the visual cryptography-based watermarking method is applied to the host image embedded image-based QR code. In the case that the specific users need verification from the image-based QR code, the binary verified image can be retrieved when the public share is available. The experimental results demonstrate that the generated image-based QR code not only looked better than some previous works but also had high quality host image embedded and identification ability.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3390\/sym13122446","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2021,12,20]],"date-time":"2021-12-20T02:40:32Z","timestamp":1639968032000},"page":"2446","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/mdpi_crossmark_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":7,"title":["A Design of Multi-Purpose Image-Based QR Code"],"prefix":"10.3390","volume":"13","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-5879-4048","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Shang-Kuan","family":"Chen","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"College of Artificial Intelligence, Yango University, Fuzhou 350015, China"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-9834-0075","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Yen-Wu","family":"Ti","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"College of Artificial Intelligence, Yango University, Fuzhou 350015, China"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]}],"member":"1968","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2021,12,18]]},"reference":[{"key":"ref_1","unstructured":"(2021, November 07). 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Visual Cryptography, Advances in Cryptography Eurocrypt\u201994, Lecture Notes in Computer Science, Springer.","DOI":"10.1007\/BFb0053419"},{"key":"ref_13","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Wakahara, T., Yamamoto, N., and Ochi, H. (2010, January 4\u20136). Image Processing of Dotted Picture in the QR Code of Cellular Phone. Proceedings of the 2010 International Conference on P2P, Parallel, Grid, Cloud and Internet Computing, Fukuoka, Japan.","DOI":"10.1109\/3PGCIC.2010.77"},{"key":"ref_14","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Wakahara, T., and Yamamoto, N. (2011, January 7\u20139). Image processing of 2-dimensional barcode. Proceedings of the 14th International Conference on Network-Based Information Systems, Tirana, Albania.","DOI":"10.1109\/NBiS.2011.80"},{"key":"ref_15","unstructured":"Ono, S., Morinaga, K., and Nakayama, S. (2008, January 1\u20136). Two-dimensional barcode decoration based on real-coded genetic algorithm. 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