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In this developer code pattern, we will create a mobile app using Apache Cordova, Node.js and Watson Visual Recognition. This mobile app sends pictures of auto and motorcycle accidents and issues to be analyzed by a server app, using Watson Visual Recognition.
The server application will use pictures of auto accidents and other incidents to train Watson Visual Recognition to identify various classes of issues, i.e. vandalism, broken windshield, motorcycle accident, or flat tire. A developer can leverage this to create their own custom Visual Recognition classifiers for their use cases.
When the reader has completed this Code Pattern, they will understand how to:
- Create a Node.js server that can utilize the Watson Visual Recognition service for classifying images.
- Have a server initialize a Visual Recognition custom classifier at startup.
- Create a Visual Recognition custom classifier in an application.
- Create an Android mobile application that can send pictures to a server app for classification using Visual Recognition.
- User interacts with the mobile app and captures an image.
- The image on the mobile phone is passed to the server application running in the cloud.
- The server sends the image to Watson Visual Recognition Service for analysis.
- Visual Recognition service classifies the image and returns the information to the server.
- Watson Visual Recognition: Visual Recognition understands the contents of images - tag images, find human faces, approximate age and gender, and find similar images in a collection.
- Mobile: Systems of engagement are increasingly using mobile technology as the platform for delivery.
- Node.js: An asynchronous event driven JavaScript runtime, designed to build scalable applications.
NOTE: The Watson Visual Recognition service required for this patten only exists in the US-South/Dallas region (as of 01/07/19). You will only be able to deploy and/or use this code there.
This code pattern contains several pieces. The app server communicates with the Watson Visual Recognition service. The mobile application is built locally and run on the iPhone or Android phone. You can deploy the server application using the IBM Cloud, or locally on your machine.
Press the above Deploy to IBM Cloud button and then click on Deploy and then jump to step #5.
To monitor the deployment, in Toolchains click on Delivery Pipeline and view the logs while the apps is being deployed.
To see the app and services created and configured for this code pattern, use the IBM Cloud dashboard. The app is named watson-vehicle-damage-analyzer with a unique suffix. The following services are created and easily identified by the wvda- prefix:
* wvda-visual-recognition
Make note of the
watson-vehicle-damage-analyzerURL route - it will be required for later use in the mobile app.
Perform steps 1-9:
-
Update config values for the Mobile App and install Build dependencies
-
Build the mobile app (Perform either 6a or 6b)
6a. Install dependencies to build the mobile application for Android
6b. Run mobile application build in Docker container for Android
-
Deploy to Android using Cordova
-
Deploy to iOS using Cordova
Clone the watson-vehicle-damage-analyzer repo locally. In a terminal, run:
git clone https://github.com/IBM/watson-vehicle-damage-analyzer.git
cd watson-vehicle-damage-analyzerCreate a Watson Visual Recognition service using IBM Cloud, a free lite plan and a Standard plan is available for both. Ensure the service is named wvda-visual-recognition. Once created, click the Launch tool button to start creating your own classifiers.
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NOTE: The following section is not required to be performed but serves to educate the reader.
For this code pattern, we programmatically call Watson Visual Recognition APIs to create classifiers. See the following code from watson-visRec-setup.js, further highlighted below:
var createClassifierParams = {
name: 'vehicleDamageAnalyzer',
BrokenWindshield_positive_examples: fs.createReadStream('./data/BrokenWindshield.zip'),
FlatTire_positive_examples: fs.createReadStream('./data/FlatTire.zip'),
MotorcycleAccident_positive_examples: fs.createReadStream('./data/MotorcycleAccident.zip'),
Vandalism_positive_examples: fs.createReadStream('./data/Vandalism.zip'),
negative_examples: fs.createReadStream('./data/Negatives.zip')
}
this.vizRecClient.createClassifier(createClassifierParams, (err, response) => {
if (err) {
console.error('Failed to create VisualRecognition classifier.');
return reject(err);
} else {
console.log('Created VisualRecognition classifier: ', response);
resolve(response);
}
});Since the server side application creates these classifiers upon start up we do not need to create them ourselves. If this was not the case, we could use the Watson Visual Recognition Tool provided by Watson Studio, or even use cURL calls, like so:
curl -X POST -u "apikey:{your_api_key}" \
--form "[email protected]" \
--form "[email protected]" \
--form "[email protected]" \
--form "[email protected]" \
--form "[email protected]" \
--form "name=vehicleDamageAnalyzer" \
"https://gateway.watsonplatform.net/visual-recognition/api/v3/classifiers?version=2018-03-19"To use the Visual Recognition service you will need the IAM apikey.
To retrieve the key in Watson Studio, scroll down to the list of Visual Recognition services,
find the service you've created and click on the name.
Go to the Credentials tab and click Show credential for existing creds of New credential + if necessary.
In IBM Cloud it will look like this:
Rename the watson-vehicle-damage-analyzer/server/env.example file to watson-vehicle-damage-analyzer/server/.env and add the apikey:
# Watson Visual Recognition
VISUAL_RECOGNITION_IAM_APIKEY=<add_apikey>If you used Deploy to IBM Cloud, the setup is automatic.
-
Install Node.js and npm (
npmversion 4.5.0 or higher) -
Install the app dependencies and start the app:
cd server
npm install
npm start
If you are unable to, or do not want to build the mobile app, you can point a browser to the server and test the application.
- For a server running locally, open a browser tab to
localhost:<port>. - For a server running on IBM Cloud, open a browser tab and point it to the URL for your server
<IBM_Cloud_server_URL:port>
The default port is 3000
You can then upload a local picture, i.e one from this repository in test/data/
Edit mobile/www/config.json and update the setting with the values retrieved previously.
NOTE: You will need the full URL to run on a mobile phone, so be sure to include
https://in the URL.
"SERVER_URL": "https://<put_server_url_here>"For this code pattern, you'll need to install the prerequisites, by following their respective documentation:
Building the mobile application requires a few dependencies that you need to manually install yourself. If you are running Docker you can build the mobile app in a container by skipping to Run mobile application build in Docker container for Android
For manually building an Android app, you'll need to install these prerequisites, by following their respective documentation:
- Java Development Kit (JDK)
- Android Studio, which includes Android tools and gives you access to Android SDKs
You'll need to install the specific SDK appropriate for your mobile device. From Android Studio, download and install the desired API Level for the SDK. We are using Android API Level 23 as this is widely supported on most phones as of January, 2018. To do this:
- Launch
Android Studioand accept all defaults. - Click on the
SDK Managericon in the toolbar. - Navigate to
Appearance & Behavior->System Settings->Android SDK - Select Android 6.0 (Marshmallow) (API Level 23).
- Click apply to download and install.
The
mobile/config.xmlis configured to build for Android API Level 23. Adjust this if you wish to build for a different API:
<preference name="android-targetSdkVersion" value="23" />Once you have completed all of the required installs and setup, you will need the following environment variables set appropriately for your platform:
JAVA_HOMEANDROID_HOMEANDROID_SDK_HOME
Open Android Studio and navigate to File -> Project Structure -> SDK Location. This location value will serve as the base for your environment variables. For example, if the location is /users/joe/Android/sdk, then:
export ANDROID_HOME=/users/joe/Android/sdk
export ANDROID_SDK_HOME=/users/joe/Android/sdk/platforms/android-<api-level>
export JAVA_HOME=`/usr/libexec/java_home`get the exact path for JAVA_HOME:
/usr/libexec/java_homeFor our example, we then add these to $PATH. (your locations may vary)
export PATH=${PATH}:/users/joe/Android/sdk/platform-tools:/users/joe/Android/sdk/tools:/Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/jdk1.8.0_151.jdk/Contents/HomeIf you are running Docker, build the mobile app in a Docker container.
Either download the image:
docker pull scottdangelo/cordova_buildOr build locally:
docker build -t cordova_build .Now create the following alias for cordova and the commands for cordova will run inside the container. Use cordova_build in place of scottdangelo/cordova_build if you have built the container locally.
alias cordova='docker run -it --rm --privileged -v $PWD:/mobile scottdangelo/cordova_build cordova'The
mobile/config.xmlfile is configured to build for Android API Level 23. Adjust this if you wish to build for a different API:
<preference name="android-targetSdkVersion" value="23" />Adjust the path for watson-vehicle-damage-analyzer/mobile based on your present working directory.
Start by adding the Android platform as the target for your mobile app.
cd watson-vehicle-damage-analyzer/mobile
cordova platform add androidEnsure that everything has been installed correctly:
cordova requirementsYou should see requirements installed for whichever appliction you are building for, ios or android. So for android, I see:
Requirements check results for android:
Java JDK: installed 1.8.0
Android SDK: installed true
Android target: installed android-26
Gradle: installed /usr/share/gradle/bin/gradle
Requirements check results for ios:
Apple macOS: not installed
Cordova tooling for iOS requires Apple macOS
(node:1) UnhandledPromiseRejectionWarning: Unhandled promise rejection (rejection id: 1): Some of requirements check failedFinally, install the plugins required by the application:
cordova plugin add cordova-plugin-camera
cordova plugin add cordova-plugin-file-transferIn order to run the application on your Android device, you will need to be prepared to transfer the application's .apk file to your device (created in the next step). There are multiple ways for developers to achieve this.
Android Studio will handle the transfer for you if you tether your Android device to your computer, and enable both developer options and web debugging.
Please refer to documentation on your specific phone to set these options.
For Mac users, Android File Transfer will facilitate simple file transfers between your computer and Android device.
cd watson-vehicle-damage-analyzer/mobile
cordova build androidAn .apk file should appear at watson-vehicle-damage-analyzer/mobile/platforms/android/app/build/outputs/apk/debug/app-debug.apk watson-vehicle-damage-analyzer/mobile/platforms/android/build/outputs/apk/android-debug.apk, which contains the Android application.
You can then either manually transfer the .apk to your device and run it yourself, or if your device is tethered (as described in the previous step), then you can run:
cordova run androidAt this point, the app named Watson Vehicle Damage Analyzer should be on your mobile device. Use the camera icon to take a photo of an automobile windshield, tire, vandalism, or of a motorcycle. The mobile application will send the image to the server after you click on the check mark, and the server will use Watson to analyze the image and fetch the results.
Install the iOS deployment tools
npm install -g ios-sim
npm install -g ios-deployAdd the iOS platform and build. This will create an iOS folder in platform directory with all necessary files to run in emulator or iOS device
cordova platform add ios
cordova prepare # or "cordova build"All cordova plugins are configured in mobile/config.xml and will be installed when you create the platform and build.
In order to run the iOS project that was created from step #8a, we need to first create the provisioning file,app IDs and certificates from Xcode. You need to have an apple login which is free if you have an iOS device. Go to Xcode>Preferences>Accounts and add your apple login. This will create a Personal Team profile which can be used to sign your project.
If you get error: exportArchive: No profiles for ‘com.watson.vehicledamageanalyzer’ were found. You need to select project in Xcode and change the bundle identifier to a unique one. Also change the widget id in mobile/config.xml to the same one in Xcode
for example: change com.watson.vehicle-damage-analyzer to your new bundle identifier name com.foo.vehicle-damage-analyzer
Deploy the app using the following steps, make sure your device in unlocked when deploying.
To deploy the app on a connected iOS device:
cordova run ios --device
-
Test the Visual Recognition service using the instructions in test/README.md
-
cordova run androiderror: Failure [INSTALL_FAILED_UPDATE_INCOMPATIBLE]
The
Vehicle Damage Analyzerapp is already installed on your phone and incompatible with the version you are now trying to run. Uninstall the current version and try again.
cordova run androiderror: No target specified and no devices found, deploying to emulator
Ensure that your phone is plugged into your computer and you can access it from the Android File Transfer utility (see Step #6 above).
- Error: Server error, status code: 502, error code: 10001, message: Service broker error: {"description"=>"Only one free key is allowed per organization. Contact your organization owner to obtain the key."}
Only one free key is allowed per organization. Binding the service to an application triggers a process that tries to allocate a new key, which will get rejected. If you already have an instance of Visual Recognition and an associated key, you can bind that instance to your application or update the API key in your server code to tell the app which key to use.
- Deploy or Dashboard shows app is not running
You may see logs in the Deploy Stage that indicate that the app has crashed and cannot start:
Starting app watson-vehicle-damage-analyzer-20171206202105670 in org scott.dangelo / space dev as [email protected]...
0 of 1 instances running, 1 starting
0 of 1 instances running, 1 starting
0 of 1 instances running, 1 starting
0 of 1 instances running, 1 starting
0 of 1 instances running, 1 starting
0 of 1 instances running, 1 starting
0 of 1 instances running, 1 starting
0 of 1 instances running, 1 starting
0 of 1 instances running, 1 crashed
FAILED
Error restarting application: Start unsuccessful
TIP: use 'cf logs watson-vehicle-damage-analyzer-20171206202105670 --recent' for more information
Finished: FAILEDOR you may see in the IBM Cloud console that the app is
Not Running:
Both of these can be spurious errors. Click the
Visit App URLlink in the IBM Cloud console, or tryRuntime->SSH, or simply test the app to see if it is running.
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This code pattern is licensed under the Apache Software License, Version 2. Separate third party code objects invoked within this code pattern are licensed by their respective providers pursuant to their own separate licenses. Contributions are subject to the Developer Certificate of Origin, Version 1.1 (DCO) and the Apache Software License, Version 2.