Call a Weighbridge Ticket OCR API from PHP

Why Weighbridge Tickets Need More Than Plain OCR

A scale ticket may place the same three measurements in different rows, reverse the order of the first and second weighing, abbreviate units, or mix ticket, vehicle, job, and material identifiers. A generic OCR engine returns text but leaves your application to decide which value is gross, tare, or net. That brittle parsing becomes harder across quarry, waste, grain, logistics, and recycling layouts.

A Structured PHP Workflow

The StructOCR Weighbridge Ticket OCR API returns a stable schema for ticket, facility, vehicle, material, and weight data. It preserves each printed value, normalizes supported units to kilograms, and runs deterministic gross-minus-tare validation. Test a sample first with the free weighbridge ticket scanner, then use the same endpoint in PHP.

Where PHP Teams Use Weighbridge OCR

• Transport and Dispatch: Match ticket numbers and vehicle registrations to loads without retyping paper tickets.
• Quarry and Waste Operations: Capture material, customer, job, gross, tare, and net values for downstream reconciliation.
• Exception Review: Route missing weights, unit issues, or printed net mismatches to a human using machine-readable review reasons.

Implementation: PHP cURL

The request uses POST /v1/weighbridge-ticket. Send one Base64-encoded JPG, PNG, WebP, or PDF in the img property and allow a 60-second client timeout. See the complete API reference for the full response and error contract.

Prerequisite: PHP 8.1+ with the cURL extension

<?php
$payload = json_encode([
    'img' => base64_encode(file_get_contents('weighbridge-ticket.jpg')),
]);

$ch = curl_init('https://api.structocr.com/v1/weighbridge-ticket');
curl_setopt_array($ch, [
    CURLOPT_POST => true,
    CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER => true,
    CURLOPT_TIMEOUT => 60,
    CURLOPT_HTTPHEADER => [
        'Content-Type: application/json',
        'x-api-key: YOUR_API_KEY',
    ],
    CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS => $payload,
]);

$body = curl_exec($ch);
$status = curl_getinfo($ch, CURLINFO_HTTP_CODE);
curl_close($ch);

if ($status !== 200) throw new RuntimeException($body ?: 'OCR request failed');
$data = json_decode($body, true, flags: JSON_THROW_ON_ERROR)['data'];

echo 'Ticket: ' . ($data['ticket_number'] ?? 'unknown') . PHP_EOL;
echo 'Net kg: ' . ($data['weights']['net']['normalized_kg'] ?? 'unknown') . PHP_EOL;
echo 'Needs review: ' . json_encode($data['validation']['needs_review']) . PHP_EOL;

Example Validated JSON Response

The API separates extracted fields from deterministic validation so your application can store the record and make an explicit review decision.

{
  "success": true,
  "data": {
    "is_weighbridge_ticket": true,
    "document_type": "generic_weighbridge_ticket",
    "ticket_number": "1042",
    "facility": {
      "name": "North Yard Scale",
      "address": null,
      "scale_id": "SCALE-2"
    },
    "vehicle": {
      "registration": "AB12 CDE",
      "trailer_registration": null,
      "fleet_number": null,
      "driver_name": null
    },
    "material": {
      "description": "Recycled aggregate",
      "code": "RA20"
    },
    "weights": {
      "gross": {
        "value": 25330,
        "unit": "kg",
        "raw": "25,330 kg",
        "normalized_kg": 25330
      },
      "tare": {
        "value": 6770,
        "unit": "kg",
        "raw": "6,770 kg",
        "normalized_kg": 6770
      },
      "net": {
        "value": 18560,
        "unit": "kg",
        "raw": "18,560 kg",
        "normalized_kg": 18560
      }
    },
    "confidence": "high",
    "is_valid": true,
    "validation_error": null,
    "validation": {
      "calculated_net_kg": 18560,
      "difference_kg": 0,
      "weight_check_passed": true,
      "needs_review": false,
      "review_reasons": []
    }
  }
}