Build your own image dataset with Bing Image Search API
March 1st, 2020Need training data for image classification but can't find it on Kaggle? The Bing Image Search API (part of Azure Cognitive Services) lets you search for images programmatically, filtering by size, file size, licence, and colour.
The workflow
In Python: install the Bing Image Search SDK, configure your subscription key and endpoint, search with your keyword and desired count, convert results to a Pandas DataFrame, generate unique filenames using MIME type detection and UUIDs, then download images with error handling for broken links. The whole script can be parametrised to accept an array of search terms for batch downloading.
Moving data to Azure ML Studio
If you're using Azure Machine Learning Studio, upload the image folder to a datastore so other data scientists can access it too. A few lines of code with the azureml.core library handle the upload. The full Jupyter Notebook is available on GitHub.
Explore more
Bachelor's thesis: Converting sign language into text using AI
We co-promoted a bachelor's thesis on using image recognition AI to convert Flemish Sign Language into written text — comparing Azure Custom Vision, Google AutoML Vision, and Amazon Rekognition.
Internship report: Solving a game of Qwirkle with Custom Vision & OpenCV
An internship project using Custom Vision and OpenCV to detect Qwirkle tiles and calculate optimal moves.
Internship report: K-Means clustering EWS data
Intern Senne built a patient monitoring dashboard with K-Means clustering on Early Warning Score data — categorising patients by health trajectory to support clinical decision-making.
