Getting Started with Gradio for Python
Learn the basics of how to build a user interface for Python functions with Gradio.
In this lesson, we’ll take a look at three examples that show how we can quickly create a user interface with Python and Gradio. A Gradio user interface can be used for many applications. The most common application is machine learning, but it can also be used for other applications, like computer vision and image processing.
In general, Gradio is a powerful tool that allows us to quickly create and share demos of any Python function with a UI. It’s particularly useful when we want to showcase our work to nontechnical users. Another use of Gradio is to get user feedback without the need for them to understand or interact directly with the code.
The first example demonstrates a simple text transformation function, converting input text into a title case. While this is a straightforward operation in Python, the Gradio interface allows this functionality to be easily accessed and used by anyone with access to the UI.
The second and third examples are more complex, as they involve image processing tasks using the OpenCV library. These two examples allow us to add text to an image.
In the second example, we’ll use a one-liner to quickly build an interface. This is also possible if we want more control over the placement of the Gradio interface elements. This will be shown in the third example.
The latter two examples involve more complex operations and illustrate the power of Gradio in creating interfaces for functions that take complex inputs like images.
All three examples provide an introduction to the Gradio library and demonstrate how we can quickly build a UI for image processing functions. We’ll use this knowledge in the next lesson to build an actual barcode reader.
Converting text to title case with Gradio
In this first example, we’ll create a simple Gradio UI that will take some text input and output it in the title case.
import gradio as gr
def title_case(text):
result = text.title()
return result
demo = gr.Interface(fn=title_case, inputs="text", outputs="text")
demo.launch(server_name="0.0.0.0", server_port=7860)Line 1: First, we import the gradio library and alias it as gr. The gradio is the Python library that allows us to create user interfaces for our Python functions quickly. We’ll be using this and the following lessons.
Lines 3–5: Next, we define a function called title_case() that takes one argument, text.
Inside the title_case() function, a line is ...