Industrial Shipping Container Number Scanner API

The Problem with Traditional Container Scanners

Deploying proprietary hardware-based shipping container number scanners across multiple lanes or mobile teams is prohibitively expensive and difficult to scale. Standard optical equipment frequently misreads codes due to intense solar glare, rust, or when text is rotated upside down on top-down crane angles. To achieve reliable automation without the hardware overhead, software teams need a flexible cloud alternative. For a deeper dive into overcoming these physical environmental hurdles, see our core Container OCR capabilities.

StructOCR: The Software Engine for Your Container Scanner

Engineered strictly as a high-performance REST API to eliminate heavy SDK dependencies, this endpoint serves as the cloud brain for any custom scanner application. It is powered by our developer-first Logistics Container OCR engine. It provides native 180-degree rotation invariance and automatically performs strict ISO 6346 validation on the owner code and check digit before delivering a clean JSON response directly to your database.

Turn Any Device Into a Container Scanner

Power Your Scanner Component

Integrate the scanning backend with a few lines of code. The endpoint supports raw Base64 payloads and direct file uploads, making it highly optimized for edge and mobile networks.

import requests
import base64

# Prepare Base64 Image from scanner camera snapshot
with open("scanner_snapshot.jpg", "rb") as image_file:
    base64_image = base64.b64encode(image_file.read()).decode('utf-8')

url = "https://api.structocr.com/v1/container"
headers = {
    "x-api-key": "YOUR_API_KEY",
    "Content-Type": "application/json"
}
payload = {
    "img": base64_image
}

try:
    print("Processing scanner payload...")
    response = requests.post(url, headers=headers, json=payload)
    result = response.json()

    if result.get('success'):
        data = result['data']['parsed']
        print("✅ Container Scanned Successfully!")
        print(f"Container ID: {data.get('owner_code')}{data.get('category')}{data.get('serial_number')}-{data.get('check_digit')}")
    else:
        print(f"❌ Scan Failed: {result.get('message')}")
except Exception as e:
    print(f"Error: {e}")

{
  "success": true,
  "data": {
    "container_number": "EMCU8504730",
    "is_valid": true,
    "confidence": "High",
    "parsed": {
      "owner_code": "EMC",
      "category": "U",
      "serial_number": "850473",
      "check_digit": "0"
    }
  }
}