What are Claycodes?
Claycodes are a new type of scannable visual codes.
Claycodes extend the functionalities of traditional visual codes (e.g., QR codes) by allowing an unprecedented degree of customisation, both of the shape of the code and on its style, bridging the world of designers with the needs of machine-readable visual codes.
The principle behind Claycode's visual encoding makes them the first visual code to be independent from their shape (i.e., not limited to a square, rectangle, or circle). Thanks to this property, they can be placed within any region (provided it is large enough to contain the message).
Publication
Title: Claycode: Stylable and Deformable 2D Scannable Codes
Authors: Marco Maida, Alberto Crescini, Marco Perronet, Elena Camuffo
This paper introduces Claycode, a novel 2D scannable code designed for extensive stylization and deformation. Unlike traditional matrix-based codes (e.g., QR codes), Claycodes encode their message in a tree structure. During the encoding process, bits are mapped into a topology tree, which is then depicted as a nesting of color regions drawn within the boundaries of a target polygon shape.
When decoding, Claycodes are extracted and interpreted in real-time from a camera stream. We detail the end-to-end pipeline and show that Claycodes allow for extensive stylization without compromising their functionality. We then empirically demonstrate Claycode's high tolerance to heavy deformations, outperforming traditional 2D scannable codes in scenarios where they typically fail.
Recognition
- Journal Paper at ACM Transactions on Graphics (TOG)
- Oral Presentation at SIGGRAPH 2025
- Part of SIGGRAPH 2025 Computer Animation Festival
