Cloud Vision

As I mentioned earlier in this chapter, we can get some information about a text file by counting characters or reading the size. In the case of images, the amount of information we can obtain is even less, mostly file size, image size, and maybe camera metadata.

However, as the adage says, “a picture is worth a thousand words,” and there is a lot of information that we can get by looking at a picture. Cloud Vision, a product belonging to Google Cloud Vision AI, allows us to extract all this information in a structured way so we can see inside pictures and get some interesting information that we can use to obtain insights.

Let’s give it a try first, so you can see what kind of information we can get. Let’s try the demo again, this time available at the following URL: https://cloud.google.com/vision. Just go to the Demo section using the left menu.

This time we will use a picture of my good old Amstrad CPC 464, hosted by Wikipedia....