Image Captioning with BLIP (BLIP-Image-Captioning-Large)

This project uses a pre-trained BLIP model from Salesforce, which generates captions for images. The model leverages BLIP for both conditional and unconditional image captioning. This project is designed to be integrated with a PHP backend, making it easy to call via shell_exec().

Table of Contents

1. Project Overview
2. Requirements
3. Apache & PHP Setup for Windows Users
4. Python Setup and Dependencies
5. Directory Structure

Project Overview

This project uses the BLIP (Bootstrapping Language-Image Pretraining) model from Salesforce to generate captions for images. It can provide both conditional captions (given a prompt) and unconditional captions (without any prompt).

The code integrates Python with a PHP backend using Apache to call Python scripts and display generated captions on a webpage.

Requirements

Prepare your environment:

• Ensure that Python is installed and the dependencies are set up as mentioned in the Python Setup and Dependencies section.

• Make sure Apache is running via XAMPP.

Apache PHP Setup for Windows Users

If you are running this project on Windows using Apache and PHP (for local development with XAMPP), follow these steps to set up:

1. Install XAMPP (if not installed yet):

   • Download and install XAMPP from here.
   • After installation, launch the XAMPP control panel.

2. Place the Project Files in the Correct Directory:

   • Move or clone this project folder to the htdocs directory of your XAMPP installation.
   • Example: If XAMPP is installed at C:\xampp, place the project in C:\xampp\htdocs\image-caption-generator.

3. Ensure PHP Can Access the Python Script:

   • Use shell_exec() in PHP to execute the Python script.
   • Make sure PHP has permissions to execute the Python script from the command line.

   Example PHP code to call the Python script:

   <?php
   // Example path to the image
   $image_path = 'C:/xampp/htdocs/image-caption-generator/images/myimage.jpg';

   // Command to run the Python script
   $command = "python C:/xampp/htdocs/image-caption-generator/generate_caption.py $image_path";

   // Execute the command and capture the output
   $output = shell_exec($command);

   // Display the output (captions)
   echo $output;
   ?>

Python Setup and Dependencies

Before running the Python script, you'll need to install the following dependencies:

• torch: For running the deep learning model.
• transformers: For using the BLIP model and processor.
• Pillow: For image processing and opening image files.
• requests: For handling HTTP requests (if needed).

You can install all the necessary dependencies by running the following command in your Python environment:

pip install -r requirements.txt

Directory Structure

The recommended directory structure for your project should look like this:

/xampp/htdocs/image-caption-generator/
├── generate_caption.py      # Python script for captioning
├── images/                  # Directory to store images
├── uploads/                 # Directory to store uploaded images
├── requirements.txt         # Python dependencies
├── README.md                # This file
└── your_php_script.php      # PHP script to call Python script