A mobile computing device-implemented method of imaging an object to read information, includes capturing, by running an image capturing thread, a plurality of raw images of the object by an image capturing component of the mobile computing device and placing in an image queue in a first memory location; processing, by running an image processing thread, one or more raw images to extract one or more potential machine readable zone (MRZ) candidates and placing in a MRZ candidate queue in a second memory location; analyzing, by running an image analysis thread, an MRZ candidate to detect an MRZ and placing in an MRZ queue in a third memory location; and creating a composite MRZ if a timer has expired, or the MRZ queue has reached a predetermined threshold.