Generating QR Codes in Java with Maven and ZXing

Step 1: Create a standard Maven project and add the Google ZXing core library as a dependency in pom.xml:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<project xmlns="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0"
         xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
         xsi:schemaLocation="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0 http://maven.apache.org/xsd/maven-4.0.0.xsd">
    <modelVersion>4.0.0</modelVersion>
    <groupId>org.javaboy</groupId>
    <artifactId>QRCode</artifactId>
    <version>1.0-SNAPSHOT</version>
    <dependencies>
        <!-- ZXing QR code dependency -->
        <dependency>
            <groupId>com.google.zxing</groupId>
            <artifactId>core</artifactId>
            <version>3.3.0</version>
        </dependency>
    </dependencies>
</project>

Step 2: In the project’s util package, add BufferedImageLuminanceSource, a class extending ZXing’s LuminanceSource to provide cropping, rotation, and pixel‑row extraction for BufferedImage objects.

package org.javaboy.util;

import java.awt.Graphics2D;
import java.awt.geom.AffineTransform;
import java.awt.image.BufferedImage;

import com.google.zxing.LuminanceSource;

/**
 * @author bai
 * @date 2020/7/1 9:27
 */
public class BufferedImageLuminanceSource extends LuminanceSource {
    private final BufferedImage image;
    private final int left;
    private final int top;

    public BufferedImageLuminanceSource(BufferedImage image) {
        this(image, 0, 0, image.getWidth(), image.getHeight());
    }

    public BufferedImageLuminanceSource(BufferedImage image, int left, int top, int width, int height) {
        super(width, height);
        int sourceWidth = image.getWidth();
        int sourceHeight = image.getHeight();
        if (left + width > sourceWidth || top + height > sourceHeight) {
            throw new IllegalArgumentException("Crop rectangle does not fit within image data.");
        }
        for (int y = top; y < top + height; y++) {
            for (int x = left; x < left + width; x++) {
                if ((image.getRGB(x, y) & 0xFF000000) == 0) {
                    image.setRGB(x, y, 0xFFFFFFFF); // = white
                }
            }
        }
        this.image = new BufferedImage(sourceWidth, sourceHeight, BufferedImage.TYPE_BYTE_GRAY);
        this.image.getGraphics().drawImage(image, 0, 0, null);
        this.left = left;
        this.top = top;
    }

    @Override
    public byte[] getRow(int y, byte[] row) {
        if (y < 0 || y >= getHeight()) {
            throw new IllegalArgumentException("Requested row is outside the image: " + y);
        }
        int width = getWidth();
        if (row == null || row.length < width) {
            row = new byte[width];
        }
        image.getRaster().getDataElements(left, top + y, width, 1, row);
        return row;
    }

    @Override
    public byte[] getMatrix() {
        int width = getWidth();
        int height = getHeight();
        int area = width * height;
        byte[] matrix = new byte[area];
        image.getRaster().getDataElements(left, top, width, height, matrix);
        return matrix;
    }

    @Override
    public boolean isCropSupported() {
        return true;
    }

    @Override
    public LuminanceSource crop(int left, int top, int width, int height) {
        return new BufferedImageLuminanceSource(image, this.left + left, this.top + top, width, height);
    }

    @Override
    public boolean isRotateSupported() {
        return true;
    }

    @Override
    public LuminanceSource rotateCounterClockwise() {
        int sourceWidth = image.getWidth();
        int sourceHeight = image.getHeight();
        AffineTransform transform = new AffineTransform(0.0, -1.0, 1.0, 0.0, 0.0, sourceWidth);
        BufferedImage rotatedImage = new BufferedImage(sourceHeight, sourceWidth, BufferedImage.TYPE_BYTE_GRAY);
        Graphics2D g = rotatedImage.createGraphics();
        g.drawImage(image, transform, null);
        g.dispose();
        int width = getWidth();
        return new BufferedImageLuminanceSource(rotatedImage, top, sourceWidth - (left + width), getHeight(), width);
    }
}

Step 3: Add QRCodeUtil, which defines constants for charset, image format, QR code size, and logo dimensions, provides a method to create a QR code image, optionally embed a logo, and offers multiple overloads for encoding to a file, stream, or returning a BufferedImage. It also contains a decode method that reads a QR code image and returns the embedded text.

package org.javaboy.util;

import java.awt.BasicStroke;
import java.awt.Graphics;
import java.awt.Graphics2D;
import java.awt.Image;
import java.awt.Shape;
import java.awt.geom.RoundRectangle2D;
import java.awt.image.BufferedImage;
import java.io.File;
import java.io.OutputStream;
import java.util.Hashtable;
import javax.imageio.ImageIO;

import com.google.zxing.BarcodeFormat;
import com.google.zxing.BinaryBitmap;
import com.google.zxing.DecodeHintType;
import com.google.zxing.EncodeHintType;
import com.google.zxing.MultiFormatReader;
import com.google.zxing.MultiFormatWriter;
import com.google.zxing.Result;
import com.google.zxing.common.BitMatrix;
import com.google.zxing.common.HybridBinarizer;
import com.google.zxing.qrcode.decoder.ErrorCorrectionLevel;

/**
 * @author bai
 * @date 2020/7/1 9:29
 */
public class QRCodeUtil {
    private static final String CHARSET = "utf-8";
    private static final String FORMAT_NAME = "JPG";
    private static final int QRCODE_SIZE = 300; // QR code size
    private static final int WIDTH = 60;       // LOGO width
    private static final int HEIGHT = 60;      // LOGO height

    private static BufferedImage createImage(String content, String imgPath, boolean needCompress) throws Exception {
        Hashtable hints = new Hashtable();
        hints.put(EncodeHintType.ERROR_CORRECTION, ErrorCorrectionLevel.H);
        hints.put(EncodeHintType.CHARACTER_SET, CHARSET);
        hints.put(EncodeHintType.MARGIN, 1);
        BitMatrix bitMatrix = new MultiFormatWriter().encode(content, BarcodeFormat.QR_CODE, QRCODE_SIZE, QRCODE_SIZE, hints);
        int width = bitMatrix.getWidth();
        int height = bitMatrix.getHeight();
        BufferedImage image = new BufferedImage(width, height, BufferedImage.TYPE_INT_RGB);
        for (int x = 0; x < width; x++) {
            for (int y = 0; y < height; y++) {
                image.setRGB(x, y, bitMatrix.get(x, y) ? 0xFF000000 : 0xFFFFFFFF);
            }
        }
        if (imgPath == null || "".equals(imgPath)) {
            return image;
        }
        // Insert logo image
        QRCodeUtil.insertImage(image, imgPath, needCompress);
        return image;
    }

    private static void insertImage(BufferedImage source, String imgPath, boolean needCompress) throws Exception {
        File file = new File(imgPath);
        if (!file.exists()) {
            System.err.println("" + imgPath + "   该文件不存在！");
            return;
        }
        Image src = ImageIO.read(new File(imgPath));
        int width = src.getWidth(null);
        int height = src.getHeight(null);
        if (needCompress) { // compress LOGO
            if (width > WIDTH) {
                width = WIDTH;
            }
            if (height > HEIGHT) {
                height = HEIGHT;
            }
            Image image = src.getScaledInstance(width, height, Image.SCALE_SMOOTH);
            BufferedImage tag = new BufferedImage(width, height, BufferedImage.TYPE_INT_RGB);
            Graphics g = tag.getGraphics();
            g.drawImage(image, 0, 0, null);
            g.dispose();
            src = image;
        }
        // Draw LOGO
        Graphics2D graph = source.createGraphics();
        int x = (QRCODE_SIZE - width) / 2;
        int y = (QRCODE_SIZE - height) / 2;
        graph.drawImage(src, x, y, width, height, null);
        Shape shape = new RoundRectangle2D.Float(x, y, width, width, 6, 6);
        graph.setStroke(new BasicStroke(3f));
        graph.draw(shape);
        graph.dispose();
    }

    public static void encode(String content, String imgPath, String destPath, boolean needCompress) throws Exception {
        BufferedImage image = QRCodeUtil.createImage(content, imgPath, needCompress);
        mkdirs(destPath);
        ImageIO.write(image, FORMAT_NAME, new File(destPath));
    }

    public static BufferedImage encode(String content, String imgPath, boolean needCompress) throws Exception {
        return QRCodeUtil.createImage(content, imgPath, needCompress);
    }

    public static void mkdirs(String destPath) {
        File file = new File(destPath);
        if (!file.exists() && !file.isDirectory()) {
            file.mkdirs();
        }
    }

    public static void encode(String content, String imgPath, String destPath) throws Exception {
        QRCodeUtil.encode(content, imgPath, destPath, false);
    }

    public static void encode(String content, String destPath) throws Exception {
        QRCodeUtil.encode(content, null, destPath, false);
    }

    public static void encode(String content, String imgPath, OutputStream output, boolean needCompress) throws Exception {
        BufferedImage image = QRCodeUtil.createImage(content, imgPath, needCompress);
        ImageIO.write(image, FORMAT_NAME, output);
    }

    public static void encode(String content, OutputStream output) throws Exception {
        QRCodeUtil.encode(content, null, output, false);
    }

    public static String decode(File file) throws Exception {
        BufferedImage image = ImageIO.read(file);
        if (image == null) {
            return null;
        }
        BufferedImageLuminanceSource source = new BufferedImageLuminanceSource(image);
        BinaryBitmap bitmap = new BinaryBitmap(new HybridBinarizer(source));
        Hashtable hints = new Hashtable();
        hints.put(DecodeHintType.CHARACTER_SET, CHARSET);
        Result result = new MultiFormatReader().decode(bitmap, hints);
        return result.getText();
    }

    public static String decode(String path) throws Exception {
        return QRCodeUtil.decode(new File(path));
    }
}

Step 4: Write a simple QRCodeApplication class with a main method that defines the text (or URL) to encode, calls QRCodeUtil.encode to generate a QR code image file, then calls QRCodeUtil.decode on the generated file and prints the decoded string.

package org.javaboy;

import org.javaboy.util.QRCodeUtil;

/**
 * @author bai
 * @date 2020/7/1 9:31
 */
public class QRCodeApplication {
    public static void main(String[] args) throws Exception {
        // Content to embed in the QR code (text or URL)
        String text = "http://www.baidu.com";
        // Destination path for the generated QR code image
        String destPath = "C:\\Users\\bai\\Pictures\\img\\code" + System.currentTimeMillis() + ".jpg";
        // Generate QR code (no logo, compress flag true for demonstration)
        QRCodeUtil.encode(text, null, destPath, true);
        // Decode the generated QR code
        String str = QRCodeUtil.decode(destPath);
        // Print the decoded content
        System.out.println(str);
    }
}

The article also includes a screenshot of the resulting QR code and provides a link to the full source repository on Gitee.