Custom API for Alt Text Generation with AI

I built the Image Captioning API using the Salesforce BLIP (Bootstrapping Language-Image Pre-training) Image Captioning model to generate descriptive alt text for images. This API is designed to accept an image URL, process the image through the BLIP model, and return a human-readable description of the image. This functionality is particularly useful for enhancing accessibility and SEO by providing meaningful alt text for images.

How It Works

1. Input: The client sends a GET request to the API endpoint with the url parameter specifying the image URL.

2. Processing:

   • The API fetches the image from the provided URL.

   • The fetched image is then passed to the Salesforce BLIP Image Captioning model.

   • The BLIP model processes the image and generates a textual description.

3. Output: The API returns a JSON response containing the generated description.

Example Request

curl -X GET "https://dashing-centaur-eeaac3.netlify.app/.netlify/functions/api/analyze-image?url=https://example.com/path/to/image.jpg"

Example Response

{
  "description": {
    "generated_text": "a person walking on a sand dune"
  }
}

Use Cases

• Accessibility: Automatically generate alt text for images to improve web accessibility for visually impaired users.

• SEO: Enhance search engine optimization by providing descriptive alt text for images.

• Content Management: Assist content creators in generating descriptions for large numbers of images efficiently.

Advantages

• Efficiency: Automates the process of generating descriptive alt text, saving time and effort.

• Consistency: Ensures a consistent style and quality of descriptions across all images.

• Scalability: Capable of handling requests for multiple images efficiently, making it suitable for large-scale implementations.

Limitations

• Accuracy: While the BLIP model provides high-quality descriptions, the accuracy may vary depending on the complexity and context of the images.

• Dependency on Image Quality: The quality of the generated description may depend on the clarity and detail of the input image.

This API serves as a robust tool for automatically generating descriptive text for images, leveraging advanced AI models to enhance user experience and content accessibility.

Use Case: Link

👨‍💻 Technical Stack:

Backend:

• Node.js

• Express

Build + Test Tools:

• Netlify

• Postman

AI Model:

• Salesforce BLIP (Bootstrapping Language-Image Pre-training) Image Captioning model

Version Control:

• GitHub