Introduction	Supported_Platforms	Installation_Steps	Plugin_Usage	Working_Examples	More_about_us!

cordova-plugin-mobile-ocr

This plugin was made possible because of google mobile vision text recognition API. The supported languages are listed in the link. This plugin is absolutely free and will work offline once install is complete. All required files required for Text Recognition are downloaded during install if necessary space is available.

This plugin defines a global textocr object, which provides an method that accepts image uri or base64 inputs. If some text was detected in the image, this text will be returned as a string. The imageuri or base64 can be send to the plugin using any another plugin like cordova-plugin-camera or cordova-plugin-document-scanner. Although the object is attached to the global scoped window, it is not available until after the deviceready event.

document.addEventListener("deviceready", onDeviceReady, false);
function onDeviceReady() {
console.log(textocr);
}

Supported Platforms

Android
iOS

Installation Steps

This requires cordova 7.1.0+ , cordova android 6.4.0+ and cordova ios 4.3.0+
npm link :- https://www.npmjs.com/package/cordova-plugin-mobile-ocr

cordova plugin add cordova-plugin-mobile-ocr

For Android that is all.

For iOS please also follow the steps below.

Once the iOS platform is added in command line, change directory to where podfile is found. Example location :- (myapp/platforms/ios).
Make sure you have cocoapods installed then in command line do pod update.
Now open myapp.xcworkspace which is usually found in the same directory as the podfile, then build and run.
Note :- if you use myapp.xcodeproj to build and run, it will not work and it will show a linker error.
Note :- if you manually create the podfile, please refer to issue #2

Plugin Usage

textocr.recText(sourceType, returnType, uriOrBase, successCallback, errorCallback)

textocr.recText The textocr.recText function accepts image data as uri or base64 and uses google mobile vision to recognize text and return the recognized text as string on its successcallback.
sourceType The sourceType parameter can take values 0,1,2,3 or 4 each of which are explained in detail in the table below. sourceType is an Int within the native code.

sourceType	uriOrBase	Accuracy	Recommendation	Notes
0	NORMFILEURI	Very High	Recommended	On android this is same as NORMNATIVEURI
1	NORMNATIVEURI	Very High	Not Recommended (See note below)	On android this is same as NORMFILEURI
2	FASTFILEURI	Very Low	Not Recommended	On android this is same as FASTNATIVEURI. Compression allows for faster processing but sacrifices a lot of accuracy. Best used if ocr images will always be extremely large with large text in them.
3	FASTNATIVEURI	Very Low	Not Recommended	On android this is same as FASTFILEURI. Compression allows for faster processing but sacrifices a lot of accuracy. Best used if ocr images will always be extremely large with large text in them.
4	BASE64	Very High	Not Recommended	Extremely memory intensive and thus not recommended

Note :- NORMNATIVEURI & FASTNATIVEURI for iOS uses deprecated methods to access images. This is to support the camera plugin which still uses the deprecated methods to return native image URI's using ALAssetsLibrary. This plugin uses non deprecated PHAsset library whose deprecated method fetchAssets(withALAssetURLs:options:) is used to retrieve the image data.

returnType The returnType parameter can take values 0,1,2 or 3 each of which are explained in detail in the table below. If a wrong value is passed into this parameter it will default to 3 or ALL. See the image below the table to get a better understanding of BLOCKS, LINES and WORDS. Each of these (BLOCKS, LINES or WORDS) will contain the entire recognized text but they can be used for better formatting and thus are separated. ALL will contain all blocks first, followed by a new line character \n, followed by all lines, followed by another new line character \n, followed by all words. So using ALL will return duplicates. returnType is an Int within the native code.

returnType	returnConst	Notes
0	BLOCKS	Detected blocks of text seperated by two new line `\n` characters.
1	LINES	Detected lines of text seperated by one new line `\n` character.
2	WORDS	Detected words in the text seperated by `,` and . A comma followed by a space.
3	ALL	`ALL` will contain all blocks first, followed by a new line character `\n`, followed by all lines, followed by another new line character `\n`, followed by all words. So using `ALL` will return duplicates.

uriOrBase The plugin accepts image uri or base64 data in uriOrBase which is obtained from another plugin like cordova-plugin-document-scanner or cordova-plugin-camera. This uriOrBase is then used by the plugin and via google mobile vision, it detects the text on the image. The data required for OCR is initially downloaded when the app is first installed.

Example uriOrBase for NORMFILEURI or FASTFILEURI as obtained from camera plugin or scanner plugin :- file:///var/mobile/Containers/Data/Application/FF505EA5-F16E-4CBA-8F8B-76A219EDA407/tmp/cdv_photo_001.jpg

Example uriOrBase for NORMNATIVEURI or FASTNATIVEURI as obtained from camera plugin. scanner plugin doesn't return this :- assets-library://asset/asset.JPG?id=EFBA7BCD-3031-4646-9874-49368849749A&ext=JPG

successCallback The return value is sent to the successCallback callback function, in string format if no errors occured.
errorCallback The errorCallback function returns Scan Failed: Found no text to scan if no text was detected on the image. It also return other messages based on the error conditions.

Note :- After install the OCR App using this plugin does not need an internet connection for Optical Character Recognition since all the required data is downloaded locally on install.

You can do whatever you want with the string obtained from this plugin, for example:

Render the image in an <p> tag.
<p id="pp">nothing yet. wait</p> in html
var element = document.getElementById('pp'); element.innerHTML=recognizedText; in js

Note :- This plugin doesn't handle permissions as it only requires the URIs or Base64 data of images and thus expects the other plugins that provide it the URI or Base64 data to handle permissions.

Working Examples

Please use cordova plugin add cordova-plugin-camera or cordova plugin add cordova-plugin-document-scanner before using the following examples.

Note :- The cordova-plugin-mobile-ocr plugin will not automatically download either of these plugins as dependencies (This is because this plugin can be used as standalone plugin which can accept URIs or Base64 data through any method or plugin).

Using cordova-plugin-camera

navigator.camera.getPicture(onSuccess, onFail, { quality: 100, correctOrientation: true });

function onSuccess(imageData) {
      textocr.recText(0, 3, imageData, onSuccess, onFail);
      // for sourceType Use 0,1,2,3 or 4
      // for returnType Use 0,1,2 or 3 // 3 returns duplicates[see table]
      function onSuccess(recognizedText) {
            //var element = document.getElementById('pp');
            //element.innerHTML=recognizedText;
            //Use above two lines to show recognizedText in html
            console.log(recognizedText);
            alert(recognizedText);
      }
      function onFail(message) {
            alert('Failed because: ' + message);
      }
}
function onFail(message) {
      alert('Failed because: ' + message);
}

Using cordova-plugin-document-scanner

Note :- base64 and NATIVEURIs won't work with cordova-plugin-document-scanner plugin

scan.scanDoc(1, onSuccess, onFail);

function onSuccess(imageURI) {
      textocr.recText(0, 3, imageURI, onSuccess, onFail); 
      // for sourceType Use 0,2 // 1,3,4 won't work
      // for returnType Use 0,1,2 or 3 // 3 returns duplicates[see table]
      function onSuccess(recognizedText) {
            //var element = document.getElementById('pp');
            //element.innerHTML=recognizedText;
            //Use above two lines to show recognizedText in html
            console.log(recognizedText);
            alert(recognizedText);
      }
      function onFail(message) {
            alert('Failed because: ' + message);
      }
}
function onFail(message) {
      alert('Failed because: ' + message);
}

More about us

Find out more or contact us directly here :- http://www.neutrinos.co/

Facebook :- https://www.facebook.com/Neutrinos.co/
LinkedIn :- https://www.linkedin.com/company/25057297/
Twitter :- https://twitter.com/Neutrinosco
Instagram :- https://www.instagram.com/neutrinos.co/

milseg / cordova-plugin-mobile-ocr