Show HN: A tool to translate images across languages

#1

Post by hbornfree » Thu, Oct 25, 2018, 7:30 AM UTC

Show HN: A tool to translate images across languages
blog.imgtranslate.com

Re: Show HN: A tool to translate images across languages

#2

Post by hbornfree » Thu, Oct 25, 2018, 7:34 AM UTC

Hello everyone! The creator of imgtranslate here. Happy to discuss anything on tech and product. The current stack uses a good dose of traditional(OpenCV) and neural implementations. And we're actively pursuing LSPs(Language Service Providers) and marketing agencies to try it out.

Re: Show HN: A tool to translate images across languages

#3

Post by bausshf » Fri, Oct 26, 2018, 12:37 PM UTC

Kind of a cool project and looking forward to seeing where it goes.

I was a little disappointed by what it actually was, because I was under the impression it would be somekind of OCR, that would translate text from an image ex. if you took a photo of a sign in one language you could translate it to another language by the photo you took.

Re: Show HN: A tool to translate images across languages

#4

Post by hbornfree » Fri, Oct 26, 2018, 3:46 PM UTC

bausshf wrote: post #3

Kind of a cool project and looking forward to seeing where it goes. I was a little disappointed by what it actually was, because I was under the impression it would be somekind of OCR, that would translate text from an image ex. if you took a photo of a sign in one language you could translate it to another language by the photo you took.

What you're describing sounds like the Google Translate camera feature(erstwhile WordLens). If you haven't tried it out, you should. Works quite well on photos taken on phone for signboards etc.

We are little particular about what to translate and how to faithfully reproduce it. That's the main differentiation.

Re: Show HN: A tool to translate images across languages

#5

Post by transpy » Fri, Oct 26, 2018, 9:53 PM UTC

hbornfree wrote: post #2

Hello everyone! The creator of imgtranslate here. Happy to discuss anything on tech and product. The current stack uses a good dose of traditional(OpenCV) and neural implementations. And we're actively pursuing LSPs(Language Service Providers) and marketing agencies to try it out.

Interesting, I can have an LSP try this. So, if it's not OCR, what is it? What is it doing?

Re: Show HN: A tool to translate images across languages

#6

Post by heavenlyblue » Fri, Oct 26, 2018, 10:07 PM UTC

hbornfree wrote: post #2

Hello everyone! The creator of imgtranslate here. Happy to discuss anything on tech and product. The current stack uses a good dose of traditional(OpenCV) and neural implementations. And we're actively pursuing LSPs(Language Service Providers) and marketing agencies to try it out.

How are you going to compete with Google Translate?

Re: Show HN: A tool to translate images across languages

#7

Post by zawerf » Fri, Oct 26, 2018, 10:23 PM UTC

Do you happen to know about project naptha? It actually seems more advanced than what you have right now because it can detect text regions too.

For example in https://projectnaptha.com/, right click on the text on any of the demo images to erase, translate, or rewrite it.

Both your solution and their's produce blurry artifacts when it fails to inpaint/erase the text correctly. I wonder how you'd would sell this to marketing agencies etc if it can't produce pixel perfect results? Isn't it easier for them to just edit the text from the source photoshop file instead?

Re: Show HN: A tool to translate images across languages

#8

Post by egfx » Sat, Oct 27, 2018, 12:10 AM UTC

zawerf wrote: post #7

Do you happen to know about project naptha? It actually seems more advanced than what you have right now because it can detect text regions too. For example in https://projectnaptha.com/ , right click on the text on any of the demo images to erase, translate, or rewrite it. Both your solution and their's produce blurry artifacts when it fails to inpaint/erase the text correctly. I wonder how you'd would sell this to…

I wouldn't be at all surprised if this IS using project naphta behind the scene. Since it's pretty much the only open source solution that does this in js. Wrapping this in a pay for play service and not providing a github to the HN community, meh.

Re: Show HN: A tool to translate images across languages

#9

Post by feiss » Sat, Oct 27, 2018, 2:21 AM UTC

hbornfree wrote: post #2

Hello everyone! The creator of imgtranslate here. Happy to discuss anything on tech and product. The current stack uses a good dose of traditional(OpenCV) and neural implementations. And we're actively pursuing LSPs(Language Service Providers) and marketing agencies to try it out.

Great stuff, congrats!

Just a small (but important because is the hero image) correction from a spanish native speaker: the earth is female, so it should be "Hay que protegerla", ending in "a".

Re: Show HN: A tool to translate images across languages

#10

Post by hbornfree » Sat, Oct 27, 2018, 3:59 AM UTC

zawerf wrote: post #7

Do you happen to know about project naptha? It actually seems more advanced than what you have right now because it can detect text regions too. For example in https://projectnaptha.com/ , right click on the text on any of the demo images to erase, translate, or rewrite it. Both your solution and their's produce blurry artifacts when it fails to inpaint/erase the text correctly. I wonder how you'd would sell this to…

Yes we do know of Project Naptha. Infact I personally used it a couple of years ago. imgtranslate also has a text region identification module (through clustering mechanisms) but I have to admit it's not that great at the moment. So I've hidden it.

As far as inpainting goes, we should soon be switching to GANs which produce structurally more accurate and less blurry results.

The problem with photoshop is that - You need a lof of fonts installed. - It doesn't always render the non-latin fonts correctly - It's expensive