Copyfish
Productivity
ocr text extraction
SHOW HN2017
292points
89comments
#75of 2,242 in 2017
Top 4%of 2017 by points
How HN took it
CuriousMostly questions and neutral comments
7 positive, 28 neutral or asking, 0 mixed, 14 critical, out of 49 comments about the project. Thread score -0.04.
Privacy: 0 for, 11 againstIdea: 3 for, 1 againstPerformance: 1 for, 1 againstExecution: 2 for, 0 against
The thread, comment by comment
Each row is a top-level comment and its replies, in HN's order. Select a cell to open that comment on HN.
positive neutral or mixed critical about another commenter or something else the maker
What HN said
What people liked
Useful for reading and watching Chinese content
From 2 comments
Well, at least this confirms that the screenshots are not manipulated ;) The tricky part for the OCR in this example is the diverse background, as the Chinese characters are…
a9t9 on HNThis seems cool, I just tried it in chrome and it has support for pop-up dictionaries, so I'll be using this for some beginner reading assistance. Thanks for making this!
Zyst on HN
Could help accessibility
From 1 comment
This seems like it could be very useful for accessibility applications.
bondolo on HN
Objections
Sends images to third-party server (ocr.space), a privacy concern
From 3 comments
Is the OCR-extraction performed in the client? if its transferred to a server then people should be aware of this so sensitive data from documents/pdf is not submitted.
gressquel on HNYeah apparently it uses https://ocr.space/, deal-breaker for me.
qz_ on HNWe need to evolve a grammar for describing privacy implications, because proper classification of this software would allow it to be marked as malware/spyware. It is beyond…
angry_octet on HN
Recognition accuracy mistakes on some text
From 2 comments
I saw the heading on HN and thought "I wonder if it works with Chinese". I saw the first example screenshot on the page was a Chinese movie and thought "Great, it does" I saw the…
imron on HNWell, at least this confirms that the screenshots are not manipulated ;) The tricky part for the OCR in this example is the diverse background, as the Chinese characters are…
a9t9 on HN
Requests
Keep a history of OCRed text when used on video
From 2 comments
> as the Chinese characters are directly inside the movie. Yep, same with TV shows, and soft-copies of transcripts are difficult to come by, hence my interest in something like…
imron on HN> When used on a video does it keep a history of all OCRed text? Not yet - but this feature is already on my todo list ;) Thanks for the hint about the chinese forums!
a9t9 on HN
Clear disclosure that data is sent to a third party
From 2 comments
No, however the description of the plugin should make it clear data will be uploaded to a third party server for recognition so the user can make a choice about that.
mnem on HNI don't find that clear at all. And this is also important to non-developers. Also, for nearly all documents I ever need to scan, if they're important enough to require scanning,…
tripzilch on HN
Questions
Is OCR done client-side or on a server?
From 1 comment
Is the OCR-extraction performed in the client? if its transferred to a server then people should be aware of this so sensitive data from documents/pdf is not submitted.
gressquel on HN
Which OCR engine is used?
From 2 comments
This is cool! Wondering what you're using for OCR?
Nimsical on HNIs this using TesseractOCR?
ransom1538 on HN
Alternatives named
Google Cloud Vision, ABBYY, Microsoft OCR
From 2 comments
Actually, based on my tests, there are only a few good services: Abbyy (best recognition rate but by far most expensive), Google Cloud Vision (second best recognition rate),…
a9t9 on HNLike a9t9 said, ABBYY, Microsoft and Google offer this. If your images however differ from the typical text document, recognition from those services will fail. OCR is highly…
ocrcustomserver on HN
Project Naptha
From 1 comment
Hmm, I've seen a few apps and extensions like this before. I think Project Naptha was a heavily advertised one that did the same thing a few years back. But how's the accuracy…
CM30 on HN
Tesseract.js
From 1 comment
There is simply no good OCR engine available that can run inside a Chrome or Firefox extension. The best available is Tesseract.js. And while this engine is fantastic as a…
a9t9 on HN