# Bokode > Source: https://docs.barcoder.ai/docs/standards/bokode > research date 2026-06-03 · extracted at 2026-10-06 > Publisher: Barcoder — encyclopedia of QR, barcode and payment-code standards Specifications: - [Bokode — Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bokode) - [Barcodes for the rest of us — MIT News (2009)](https://news.mit.edu/2009/barcodes-0724) - [Bokode project overview — MIT Media Lab](https://www.media.mit.edu/projects/bokode-imperceptible-visual-tags-for-camera-based-interaction-from-a-distance/overview/) ## Overview A Bokode is an optical data tag developed at the MIT Media Lab that packs far more information than a conventional barcode of the same size and can be read by an ordinary camera from several metres away [1][1]. Its name is a portmanteau of *bokeh* (the photographic term for out-of-focus blur) and *barcode*, because the tag is read not in sharp focus but through a camera's defocus [1][1]. It is notable as a genuinely novel optical-encoding idea — encoding information in the angular dimension of light — rather than another flat 2D matrix. ## History Bokodes were developed by a team led by Ramesh Raskar at the MIT Media Lab and presented at SIGGRAPH 2009 in a paper titled "Bokode: Imperceptible Visual Tags for Camera-Based Interaction from a Distance." The authors were Ankit Mohan (lead author), Grace Woo, Shinsaku Hiura, Quinn Smithwick, and Ramesh Raskar [1][1][2][2]. The work was publicly presented in 2009 [1][1]. ## Technical specification A Bokode is a tiny circular tag, about 3 mm in visible diameter, built from an LED behind a photomask (the data pattern) with a small lens (lenslet) in front [1][1]. The data pattern itself is made of tiled Data Matrix codes arranged so they become legible when out of focus [1][1]. Information is encoded in the angular dimension of the emitted light: rays leaving the tag vary in brightness with the angle at which they exit, and the lens maps angle to position [2][2]. Reading exploits the bokeh effect. To a camera focused on the scene, the Bokode appears as a small bright dot; but when the camera is focused at infinity, the defocus blur expands the tag's pattern across many sensor pixels, magnifying the otherwise microscopic code so it can be decoded [1][1]. Features around 15 μm can be resolved this way, and unmodified standard cameras (including phone cameras) can read the tag from a few metres — sources cite distances up to about 2–4 m — while also recovering the relative distance and angle to the tag [1][1]. The tag can hold thousands of bits, far more than a same-area printed barcode [2][2]. ## Use cases Bokode was pitched for camera-based interaction at a distance. Proposed applications include classroom quizzes with instant per-student response tracking, museum labels that push background information to a visitor's camera, restaurant menus readable from the sidewalk, motion-capture systems with roughly tenth-of-a-degree angular precision, and security/identity uses as an alternative to RFID [2][2]. The ability to read pose (distance and angle) makes it especially suited to augmented-reality and tracking research rather than ordinary product labelling [1][1]. ## Implementations Bokode is a research prototype, not a deployed commercial standard. Early active prototypes used a powered LED and cost around $5 each, with projections of dropping to roughly 5 cents at scale [2][2]. Passive variants were developed that reflect ambient light like an ordinary barcode, avoiding the cost and power of an LED, and a rewritable form was referred to as a "bocode" [1][1]. No mass-market reader ecosystem ever shipped. ## Comparison Against QR Code and Data Matrix, Bokode wins on density and on remote, angle-aware reading: it crams thousands of bits into a 3 mm dot and can be read from across a room while reporting the camera's distance and angle — something flat printed codes cannot do, since they must be in focus and reasonably large in the frame [1][1][2][2]. Its disadvantages are decisive for adoption: the active version needs a powered LED and a precision lenslet, making it far more expensive and harder to manufacture than ink-on-paper, and it requires the user to deliberately defocus the camera. QR/Data Matrix are essentially free to print and read with in-focus capture, which is why they dominate while Bokode remained a lab demonstration [1][1]. ## Fun facts Bokode was widely described as a "barcode you can read from across the room," a sharp contrast to scanners that must be held inches from a label [2][2]. Lead author Raskar framed it as a new optical-encoding category: there had previously been a handful of ways to encode information optically, and Bokode added another by using the angular dimension of light [2][2]. Because a Bokode can be covered by any opaque material, it offers simpler privacy control than an RFID tag, which needs radio-frequency shielding [1][1]. ## Status Historic research prototype. Bokode was a 2009 MIT Media Lab demonstration and never became a commercial standard or shipping product; it remains a frequently cited example of unconventional optical tagging [1][1][3][3]. ## Sources [1] [Bokode — Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bokode) — Wikipedia, accessed 2026. [2] [Barcodes for the rest of us](https://news.mit.edu/2009/barcodes-0724) — MIT News, 2009. [3] [Bokode: Imperceptible Visual Tags for Camera-Based Interaction from a Distance — project overview](https://www.media.mit.edu/projects/bokode-imperceptible-visual-tags-for-camera-based-interaction-from-a-distance/overview/) — MIT Media Lab. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bokode [2]: https://news.mit.edu/2009/barcodes-0724 [3]: https://www.media.mit.edu/projects/bokode-imperceptible-visual-tags-for-camera-based-interaction-from-a-distance/overview/ ## Deployments _No country reports mention this standard by name._ ## Regions / aggregations not mapped to a single country - Universal