Barcodes are typically printed as independent entities in a document, separated from other objects such as pictures, text, graphics, and logos. However, embedding barcodes into these objects aesthetically could make the document more appealing. This paper presents a method to embed a 2-D barcode into a logo-type graphical element by formulating the barcode embedding as a constrained optimization problem. The objective is to maximize the image appealingness while satisfying the minimum symbol contrast requirement for the barcode. It is achieved by constructing a barcode gamut and exploiting existing gamut mapping algorithm to minimize the color appearance difference between the original and barcode-embedded logo-type images.
Yonghui Zhao, Zhigang Fan, "Embedding Two-Dimensional Barcodes Into Graphics" in Proc. IS&T 20th Color and Imaging Conf., 2012, pp 211 - 215, https://doi.org/10.2352/CIC.2012.20.1.art00037