EHIC Scanner UI Components | Android Document Scanner

Introduction

The Scanbot SDK provides the ability to scan and extract content from European Health Insurance Cards (EHIC), a.k.a. elektronische Gesundheitskarten (eGK).

The following fields are supported:

• SURNAME
• GIVEN_NAME
• DATE_OF_BIRTH
• PERSONAL_IDENTIFICATION_NUMBER
• INSTITUTION_NUMBER
• INSTITUTION_NAME
• CARD_NUMBER
• CARD_EXPIRATION_DATE
• COUNTRY

The EHIC scanner is available both as an RTU UI and as a classic component (types of components are explained here).

Integration

Take a look at our Example Apps to see how to integrate the EHIC scanner.

• Ready-To-Use UI: ready-to-use-ui-demo
• Classic UI Components: ehic-scanner

Add Feature as a Dependency

HealthInsuranceCardScanner is available with SDK Package 3 (Data Capture Modules). You have to add the following dependencies for it:

implementation("io.scanbot:sdk-package-3:$latestSdkVersion")
implementation("io.scanbot:sdk-ehic-assets:$latestSdkVersion")

caution

Please do not use multiple scanners at the same time. For example, do not combine generic document scanner, health insurance scanner, text data scanner, etc. at the same time! Each scanner instance requires a lot of memory, GPU, and processor resources. Using multiple scanners will lead to performance issues for the entire application.

Initialize the SDK

The EHIC Scanner is based on the OCR feature of the Scanbot SDK. Please check the Optical Character Recognition documentation for more details.

In order to use the EHIC Scanner you need to prepare the German and English OCR language files. Place the deu.traineddata and eng.traineddata files in the assets sub-folder assets/ocr_blobs/ of your app.

Then, on initialization of the SDK, call the prepareOCRLanguagesBlobs(true) method:

import io.scanbot.sdk.ScanbotSDKInitializer

...

ScanbotSDKInitializer()
    .prepareOCRLanguagesBlobs(true)
    ...
    .initialize(this)

caution

Unfortunately, we have noticed that all devices using a Cortex A53 processor DO NOT SUPPORT GPU acceleration. If you encounter any problems, please disable GPU acceleration for these devices.

ScanbotSDKInitializer()
        .allowGpuAcceleration(false)

Ready-To-Use UI Component

Ready-To-Use UI Component (activity) that is responsible for scanning an EHIC is HealthInsuranceCardScannerActivity.

Have a look at our end-to-end working example of the RTU components usage here.

Starting and configuring RTU UI EHIC scanner

First of all, you have to add the SDK package and feature dependencies as described here.

Initialize the SDK as described here. More information about the SDK license initialization can be found here.

To use any of the RTU UI components you need to include the corresponding dependency in your build.gradle file:

implementation("io.scanbot:sdk-package-ui:$scanbotSdkVersion")

Get the latest $scanbotSdkVersion from the Changelog.

To start the RTU UI EHIC scanner you only have to start a new activity and be ready to process its result later.

info

Starting from version 1.90.0, the SDK RTU components contain predefined AndroidX Result API contracts. They handle part of the boilerplate for starting the RTU activity component and mapping the result once it finishes.

If your code is bundled with Android's deprecated startActivityForResult API - check the other approach we offer for this case.

AndroidX Result API

val hicResult: ActivityResultLauncher<HealthInsuranceCardScannerConfiguration>

...

mrzResult = registerForActivityResult(HealthInsuranceCardScannerActivity.ResultContract()) { resultEntity: HealthInsuranceCardScannerActivity.Result ->
    if (resultEntity.resultOk) {
        Toast.makeText(this@MainActivity, formatResult(resultEntity.result), Toast.LENGTH_LONG).show()
    }
}

...

myButton.setOnClickListener {
    val hicCameraConfiguration = HealthInsuranceCardScannerConfiguration()
    hicResult.launch(hicCameraConfiguration)
}

old 'startActivityForResult' approach

myButton.setOnClickListener {
    val ehicConfiguration = HealthInsuranceCardScannerConfiguration()
    val intent = HealthInsuranceCardScannerActivity.newIntent(this@MainActivity, ehicConfiguration)
    startActivityForResult(intent, EHIC_REQUEST_CODE_CONSTANT)
}

override fun onActivityResult(requestCode: Int, resultCode: Int, data: Intent?) {
    super.onActivityResult(requestCode, resultCode, data)

    if (requestCode == EHIC_REQUEST_CODE_CONSTANT) {
        val result: HealthInsuranceCardScannerActivity.Result = HealthInsuranceCardScannerActivity.extractResult(resultCode, data)
        if (result.resultOk) {
            Toast.makeText(this@MainActivity, formatResult(result), Toast.LENGTH_LONG).show()
        }
    }
}

info

We offer some syntactic sugar for handling the result from RTU components via AndroidX Result API:

• every RTU component's activity contains a Result class which, in turn, along with the resultCode value exposes a Boolean resultOk property. This will be true if resultCode equals Activity.RESULT_OK;

• when you only expect Activity.RESULT_OK result code - you can use the AppCompatActivity.registerForActivityResultOk extension method instead of registerForActivityResult - it will be triggered only when there is a non-nullable result entity present.

caution

Always use the corresponding activity's static newIntent method to create intent when starting the RTU UI activity using deprecated startActivityForResult approach. Creating android.content.Intent object using its constructor (passing the activity's class as a parameter) will lead to the RTU UI component malfunctioning.

An instance of HealthInsuranceCardScannerConfiguration is required for starting the RTU UI activity. It allows configuration changes through methods it exposes:

val hicCameraConfiguration = HealthInsuranceCardScannerConfiguration()
hicCameraConfiguration.setCancelButtonTitle("Stop")
hicCameraConfiguration.setFinderTextHint("Place the card in scanning rectangle")
hicCameraConfiguration.setUseButtonsAllCaps(true)
hicCameraConfiguration.setFlashEnabled(falsen)

info

All parameters in HealthInsuranceCardScannerConfiguration are optional.

API references for all of these methods can be found on this page.

Handling the result

Below is a simple example of presenting the result: EhicRecognitionResult fields separated by a newline character, shown in a Toast notification.

val builder = StringBuilder()
    .append("Health Insurance Card Detected: ").append("\n\n")

for (field in hicRecognitionResult.fields) {
    builder.append(field.type.name).append(": ").append(field.value).append("\n\n")
}
Toast.makeText(this@MainActivity, builder.toString(), Toast.LENGTH_LONG).show()

Full API references for the result class are available here.

Classic component

To integrate the classic component of the EHIC scanner you can have a look at our EHIC Scanner Example App or check the following step by step integration instructions.

HealthInsuranceCardScanner can be used in conjunction with ScanbotCameraXView or separately. Let's have a look at an example with ScanbotCameraXView.

Add feature dependencies and initialize the SDK

First of all, you have to add the SDK package and feature dependencies as described here.

Initialize the SDK as described here. More information about the SDK license initialization can be found here.

Add ScanbotCameraXView to layout

<io.scanbot.sdk.ui.camera.ScanbotCameraXView
    android:id="@+id/camera_view"
    android:layout_width="match_parent"
    android:layout_height="match_parent" />

Get HealthInsuranceCardScanner instance from ScanbotSDK and attach it to ScanbotCameraXView

val scanbotSDK = new ScanbotSDK(this)
val healthInsuranceCardScanner = scanbotSDK.createHealthInsuranceCardScanner()
val hicScannerFrameHandler = HealthInsuranceCardScannerFrameHandler.attach(cameraView, healthInsuranceCardScanner)

Add a result handler for HealthInsuranceCardScannerFrameHandler:

hicScannerFrameHandler.addResultHandler(object : HealthInsuranceCardScannerFrameHandler.ResultHandler {
    override fun handle(result: FrameHandlerResult<EhicRecognitionResult?, SdkLicenseError>): Boolean {
        when (result) {
            is FrameHandlerResult.Success -> {
                val detectionResult = result.value
                if (detectionResult?.status == EhicDetectionStatus.SUCCESS) {
                    // do something with result here
                }
            }
            is FrameHandlerResult.Failure -> {

            } // handle license error here
        }

        return false
    }
})

handle will be triggered every time HealthInsuranceCardScanner detects a health insurance card in the camera preview frame or if a license error has occurred. You will get List<EhicField> fields, which is a list of recognized EHIC fields.

Add a Finder Overlay

In addition, it is recommended to add a "Finder Overlay". This feature allows you to predefine an EHIC card area over the ScanbotCameraXView screen. By using this overlay the EHIC scanner can skip the time-consuming step "Search for card" and perform the recognition directly in the specified "Finder Overlay" area. By using this approach the EHIC scanner recognizes and extracts the EHIC content much faster.

Details about applying finder view logic in the layout and in the code can be found here.

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