This tutorial shows how to extract text data from an image using the LEADTOOLS Cloud Services in a C# .NET 6 console application.
Overview | |
---|---|
Summary | This tutorial covers how to use LEADTOOLS Cloud Services to make ExtractText request in a C# .NET 6 program. |
Completion Time | 30 minutes |
Project | Download tutorial project (2 KB) |
Platform | LEADTOOLS Cloud Services API |
IDE | Visual Studio 2022 |
Language | C# .NET 6 or higher |
Development License | Download LEADTOOLS |
Try it in another language |
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Be sure to review the following sites for information about LEADTOOLS Cloud Services API.
Create an Account with LEADTOOLS Hosted Cloud Services to obtain both Application ID and Password strings.
LEADTOOLS Service Plan offerings:
Service Plan | Description |
---|---|
Free Trial | Free Evaluation |
Page Packages | Prepaid Page Packs |
Subscriptions | Prepaid Monthly Processed Pages |
To further explore the offerings, refer to the LEADTOOLS Hosted Cloud Services page.
To obtain the necessary Application ID and Application Password, refer to Create an Account and Application with the LEADTOOLS Hosted Cloud Services.
In Visual Studio, create a new C# .NET 6 Console project, and add the following required NuGet package:
Newtonsoft.Json
With the project created and the package added, coding can begin.
In the Solution Explorer, open Program.cs
. Add the following statements to the using
block at the top.
// Using block at the top
using System;
using System.Text;
using System.Threading.Tasks;
using System.Net;
using System.Net.Http;
using System.Net.Http.Headers;
using System.IO;
using Newtonsoft.Json.Linq;
Add the class string variable called hostedServicesUrl
and an async Task called ExtractText()
.
This sends an ExtractText
request to the LEADTOOLS Cloud Services API, if successful a unique identifier (GUID) will be returned and then a query using this GUID will be made.
private static string hostedServicesUrl = "https://azure.leadtools.com/api/";
public static async Task ExtractText()
{
var client = InitClient();
//The first page in the file to mark for processing
int firstPage = 1;
//Sending a value of -1 will indicate to the service that all pages in the file should be processed.
int lastPage = -1;
// If using URL to the file
string fileURL = "http://demo.leadtools.com/images/cloud_samples/ocr1-4.tif";
string recognitionUrl = string.Format("Recognition/ExtractText?firstPage={0}&lastPage={1}&fileurl={2}", firstPage, lastPage, fileURL);
var result = await client.PostAsync(recognitionUrl, null);
/*
//If uploading a file as multi-part content:
HttpContent byteContent = new ByteArrayContent(File.ReadAllBytes(@"path/to/file"));
byteContent.Headers.ContentDisposition = new ContentDispositionHeaderValue("form-data")
{
Name = "attachment",
FileName = "file-name"
};
var formData = new MultipartFormDataContent();
formData.Add(byteContent, "formFieldName");
string recognitionUrl = string.Format("Recognition/ExtractText?firstPage={0}&lastPage={1}", firstPage, lastPage);
var result = await client.PostAsync(recognitionUrl, formData);
formData.Dispose();
*/
if (result.StatusCode == HttpStatusCode.OK)
{
//Unique ID returned by the services
string id = await result.Content.ReadAsStringAsync();
Console.WriteLine("Unique ID returned by the services: " + id);
await Query(id, client);
}
else
Console.WriteLine("Request failed with the following response: " + result.StatusCode);
}
Next, create an async Task called Query(string id, HttpClient client)
that utilizes the GUID provided by the ExtractText
task.
If successful the response body will contain all the request data in JSON format.
private static async Task Query(string id, HttpClient client)
{
string queryUrl = string.Format("Query?id={0}", id.ToString());
HttpResponseMessage result;
string returnedContent;
JObject returnedData;
int fileStatus;
do
{
result = await client.PostAsync(queryUrl, null);
returnedContent = await result.Content.ReadAsStringAsync();
returnedData = JObject.Parse(returnedContent);
fileStatus = (int)returnedData.SelectToken("FileStatus")!;
//The file is still being processed -- we will sleep the current thread for 5 seconds before trying again.
await Task.Delay(5000);
} while (fileStatus == 100 || fileStatus == 123);
Console.WriteLine("File has finished processing with return code: " + returnedData.SelectToken("FileStatus"));
if ((int)returnedData.SelectToken("FileStatus")! != 200)
return;
ParseJson(returnedData.SelectToken("RequestData")!.ToString());
}
Then, create the function ParseJson(string json)
to process the returned JSON data.
private static void ParseJson(string json)
{
JArray requestArray = JArray.Parse(json);
foreach (var requestReturn in requestArray)
{
Console.WriteLine("Service Type: " + requestReturn.SelectToken("ServiceType"));
Console.WriteLine("Returned Data:" + requestReturn.SelectToken("data"));
Console.WriteLine();
}
}
Finally, create the function InitClient()
to create a client connection to request the GUID and JSON data through. Where it states Replace with Application ID
and Replace with Application Password
be sure to place your Application ID and Password accordingly.
private static HttpClient InitClient()
{
string AppId = "Replace with Application ID";
string Password = "Replace with Application Password";
HttpClient client = new HttpClient();
client.BaseAddress = new Uri(hostedServicesUrl);
client.DefaultRequestHeaders.Accept.Clear();
client.DefaultRequestHeaders.Accept.Add(new MediaTypeWithQualityHeaderValue("application/json"));
string authData = string.Format("{0}:{1}", AppId, Password);
string authHeaderValue = Convert.ToBase64String(Encoding.UTF8.GetBytes(authData));
client.DefaultRequestHeaders.Authorization = new AuthenticationHeaderValue("Basic", authHeaderValue);
return client;
}
In order to test run this code be sure to add ExtractText().GetAwaiter().GetResults();
to the static void Main
section.
Run the project by pressing F5, or by selecting Debug -> Start Debugging.
If the steps were followed correctly, the console appears and the application displays the parsed text information from the returned JSON data.
This tutorial showed how to extract text information via the LEADTOOLS Cloud Services API.