I want to test Google’s Vision API handwriting recognition with a simple image upload to see how well it handles handwritten text.

Quick Setup

  1. Create Google Cloud project and enable Vision API
  2. Generate a service account key JSON file
  3. Install the Python client: pip install google-cloud-vision

Simple Test Script

#!/usr/bin/env python3
import base64
from google.cloud import vision

def detect_handwriting(image_path, credentials_path):
    """Upload single image to Google Vision API for handwriting detection."""
    
    # Set up client with credentials
    client = vision.ImageAnnotatorClient.from_service_account_json(credentials_path)
    
    # Read and encode image
    with open(image_path, 'rb') as image_file:
        content = image_file.read()
    
    image = vision.Image(content=content)
    
    # Call API for document text detection (best for handwriting)
    response = client.document_text_detection(image=image)
    
    # Extract text
    if response.full_text_annotation:
        print(f"Detected text:\n{response.full_text_annotation.text}")
        print(f"Confidence: {response.full_text_annotation.pages[0].confidence:.2f}")
    else:
        print("No text detected")
    
    # Check for errors
    if response.error.message:
        raise Exception(f'API Error: {response.error.message}')

if __name__ == '__main__':
    detect_handwriting('handwriting_sample.jpg', 'service-account-key.json')

Usage

  1. Take a photo of handwritten text
  2. Save as handwriting_sample.jpg
  3. Download service account key as service-account-key.json
  4. Run: python test_handwriting.py

Results

[Placeholder for actual test results]

How did it perform?

  • Text accuracy:
  • Setup simplicity:
  • API response time:

[Will update after testing with real handwriting samples]