Java image processing for OMR application using ordinary scanner

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Java

I am creating my final year college project on cost effective optical mark up reader. I am getting problem in deciding whether java is fast enough in term of processing image data and efficient for the purpose or i need different tool or application like Matlab.

My project is actually an application which enables implementation of OMR using an ordinary scanner. The scanned image files will provide input to the software, processing will be done, value of filled fields will be extracted and result is calculated on the basis of marks/bubbles filled by user/candidate.

I want to read jpeg or pdf format of scanned image. I want to discuss my processing module. The problem is whether reading image pixels value and generating result is feasible in term of execution. what are the other alternatives.any other suggestion are extremely helpful. Thanks in advance. I don't know about Java nio library. I am a beginner.
I want to know what are the possible libraries or API's i can use.