How to extract text from image Android app

Question

I am working on a feature for my Android app. I would like to read text from a picture then save that text in a database. Is using OCR the best way? Is there another way? Google

Answer 1

Text from an image can be extracted using Firebase machine learning (ML) kit. There are two versions of the text recognition API, on-device API (free) and on-cloud API.

To use the API, first create BitMap of the image, which should be upright. Then create FirebaseVisionImage object passing the bitmap object.

FirebaseVisionImage image = FirebaseVisionImage.fromBitmap(bitmap);

Then create FirebaseVisionTextRecognizer object.

FirebaseVisionTextRecognizer textRecognizer = FirebaseVision.getInstance()
        .getCloudTextRecognizer();

Then pass the FirebaseVisionImage object to processImage() method, add listeners to the resulting task and capture the extracted text in success callback method.

textRecognizer.processImage(image)
                .addOnSuccessListener(new OnSuccessListener() {
                    @Override
                    public void onSuccess(FirebaseVisionText firebaseVisionText) {
                       //process success
                    }
                })
                .addOnFailureListener(new OnFailureListener() {
                     @Override
                     public void onFailure(@NonNull Exception e) {
                       //process failure
                     }
                 });

For complete example which shows how to use Firebase ML text recognizer, see https://www.zoftino.com/extracting-text-from-images-android