Dithered QR Codes • Hacker News Board

Re: Dithered QR Codes

#41

Post by jmusall » Sun, Aug 09, 2026, 8:40 PM UTC

hellojomp wrote: post #20

This is really neat! A question I had about QR codes: Let’s say I want to produce a QR code that is as close as possible to an image (let’s say the Nike swoosh logo), if I just added that to the center and added the 3 orientation markers on the corners it wouldn’t be a proper QR code yet, my question is what is the minimal amount of edits I would need to do from that symbol to get a valid QR code? I’m thinking of som…

From another comment:

https://research.swtch.com/qart

Looks like this is definitely possible, the results aren't as clean as you might hope though. Maybe they could be improved by introducing some intentional errors (which were explicitly avoided here).

Re: Dithered QR Codes

#42

Post by jmusall » Sun, Aug 09, 2026, 8:48 PM UTC

ButlerianJihad wrote: post #22

Greetings, I could not find any LICENSE file or statement on the Codeberg repo. We must therefore conclude that the code is © Copyright 2025-2026, by the author(s), all rights reserved. Crazy to think there are already 3 forkers who've forked you. Furthermore, let us not forget the patent-holder of QR Codes, DENSO WAVE, and their Frequently Asked Questions: https://www.qrcode.com/en/faq.html Users of QR Code must be…

As far as I can tell the specification only demands the code modules (pixels) to be square (which is already often ignored in "aesthetic" QR codes which use e.g. round dots instead) and arranged in a square grid. Not that each grid cell has to be filled completely by the respective module. So this might actually be compliant!

Re: Dithered QR Codes

#43

Post by Diti » Mon, Aug 10, 2026, 7:53 AM UTC

hellojomp wrote: post #20

This is really neat! A question I had about QR codes: Let’s say I want to produce a QR code that is as close as possible to an image (let’s say the Nike swoosh logo), if I just added that to the center and added the 3 orientation markers on the corners it wouldn’t be a proper QR code yet, my question is what is the minimal amount of edits I would need to do from that symbol to get a valid QR code? I’m thinking of som…

Using their logo in this way is probably a trademark violation, so they would be able to get your QR code “for free” (minus the costs involved with consulting their legal division).

Re: Dithered QR Codes

#44

Post by qqilihq » Mon, Aug 10, 2026, 8:11 AM UTC

Once you understand how QR codes work it is more about "creativity" of what you want to do with your options! Next to shapes, contrast you can also use color and mix design approaches. https://qrocodile.io is a free tool that tries to push those limits of QR codes and keep it scanable and recreatable (vs. 1-time AI generated codes). It has a module based approach, so each module (pattern) can have a different approach on how to render a QR. I think a dithered QR code module is missing... something that could be added! :)