Gain insights into building REST APIs with FastAPI, explore parallel processing in Python, and discover how to deploy APIs on Microsoft Azure with a CI/CD pipeline using GitHub.

Build a REST API Using Python and Deploy It to Microsoft Azure.png

fastapi-docker.tar.gz

FastAPI-test

Python3

In this course, you will learn how to build a REST API using a lighter web framework for Python, i.e., FastAPI. You will learn the basics of FastAPI and learn how to implement parallel processing in Python APIs.

Finally, you will deploy your API on Microsoft Azure and build a Continuous Integration/Continuous Development (CI/CD) Pipeline using Github.

Build a REST API Using Python and Deploy it to Microsoft Azure

# Introduction to OCR
The term `OCR` stands for *Optical Character Recognition*. Optical Character Recognition deals with the problem of recognizing all the different handwritten and printed characters. These characters can be converted into a machine-readable, digital data format. OCR consists of several sub-processes to perform this operation in an efficient and accurate manner. The sub-processes are:
* Preprocessing of the image
* Text localization
* Character segmentation
* Character recognition
* Post processing

The processes mentioned in the above list could differ on a case by case basis, but these are the steps that would be needed to perform OCR on printed and handwritten characters.

# Introduction to tesseract
**Tesseract** is an open-source `OCR` engine that has gained popularity among `OCR` developers. Despite sometimes being painful to implement and modify, Tesseract was one of the best free and powerful `OCR` alternatives in the market for the longest time. Tesseract began as a Ph.D. research project in HP Labs, Bristol. It was developed by HP between 1984 and 1994. In 2005, HP released *Tesseract* as an open-source software. Since 2006, it has been developed and maintained by Google. Tesseract is supported by a variety of programming languages and frameworks through wrappers that can be found [here](https://tesseract-ocr.github.io/tessdoc/AddOns).
# Pytesseract
From the link mentioned above, you can find that `pytesseract` is a wrapper class for Tesseract OCR. Pytesseract cannot be used directly to perform OCR. We need to have the Tesseract software installed on our systems to perform the OCR on digital data. 

If you want to install it on your local system, please check out the [Appendix](https://www.educative.io/courses/rest-api-python-microsoft-azure/how-can-i-install-tesseract-and-pytesseract) section.

Learn about Optical Character Recognition and how Tesseract can help you to perform OCR on an image.

Overview of the Course

Building Blocks of an API in Python

Learn the Basics of FastAPI

Optical Character Recognition API Using Tesseract - Project 1

Cloud and Microsoft Azure Services

Text Analytics API Using Azure Cognitive Services - Project 2

Deploy the REST API on Microsoft Azure

Pop Quiz

Appendix

Tesseract and Pytesseract for OCR

Introduction to OCR