Abstract: An efficient method and apparatus for determining the location and approximate orientation of a barcode on a substrate. The inventive method is preferably implemented by an omnidirectional barcode locator including an application specific integrated circuit that includes one or more field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs). The digit image is a one-bit (i.e., black/white) representation of a standard eight-bit grey scale video image produced by the CCD camera. The use of a one-bit digital video signal reduces the amount of mass storage memory required to store images of barcodes and facilitates the manipulation of the video signal by the application specific integrated circuit. The omnidirectional barcode locator processes, in real-time, a digital video signal defining a pixelized image of a conveyor carrying parcels through the field of view of a CCD camera.