PaddleOCR - Variability Makes It Splendid

This is the fourth article of the series relevant to PaddleCOR. This essay will mainly analyze the variability of PaddleOCR. If you are interested in this content, you can also visit our former ones.

Variability Modeling

In this section, we will identify the variabilities/functionalities offered by PaddleOCR and introduce the benefits for stakeholders as well as the incompatibilities between these variabilities.

Variable Features Benefit Stakeholders

The features of an application include its special characteristics, functionalities, etc. This section will select the 12 most noteworthy features which make PaddleOCR different from other similar products and analyze how they benefit the stakeholders and contribute to the user experience. Most of the selected features reveal the variability of the application.

  1. Variable Implementation Size
    “Ultralight” is the most significant feature for PaddleOCR and it is also used as the slogan for this application. The whole OCR model consists of three submodels, a 3 MB detector, a 1.4 MB direction classifier, and a 5 MB recognition processor, so the total size of the model is 9.4 MB. Besides, the ultralight size does not much adversely influence the processing speed and accuracy. This feature means that the model can be implemented using fewer resources and computational power. The enterprises which apply this application to make products can cut down their hardware costs and energy consumption, as it does not require devices with large memory. In addition, this kind of reduction also obeys the concept of sustainable design, contributing to environmental protection. In addition, it also provides a general size model(143.4M) which can achieve a higher accuracy but the trade-off is the implementing size.

Figure: Ultralight Implementation Benefits

  1. Sufficient Document Support
    A deep learning project sometimes is tough for a beginner to learn, but PaddleOCR provides a large number of documents to support a beginner to start her/his journey. The documents are offered either from the official organization or non-official individuals. Since PaddleOCR is also widely used for educational purposes, adequate guideline better supports students. In return, more developers can involve in this project and contribute to it. Some parts of the documents can be found in Quick Start Doc, Paddle Community and online lectures.

Figure: A Screenshot from YouTube

  1. Recognition Flexibility The PaddlOCR can also be used for recognizing the texts with the artistic formats or written on a special texture, which makes PaddleOCR surpass the traditional OCR tools. The applicable range will be much wider, which benefits the commercial users.

Figure: Recognition Testing

  1. Data Format Compatibility The application can read various formats of images. For instance, the input can be jpg, bmp, png, rgb and tif. Not limited to static inputs, starting from release 2.0, PaddleOCR can also accept dynamic inputs such as gif.

  2. Platform Transplantability Paddle provides the implementation for different platforms including Windows, Linux, macOS, Andriod, IOS. It also benefits the commercial users and enterprises who want to use the application to build the products on different platforms.

  3. Programming Language Variability The application provides different language inferences, including Python, CPP and GO. It benefits both the developers and learners since a user has her/his own preferable programming languages.

Figure: Feature Model

  1. Modular Separability The design follows modularization which simplifies the module management and extends the scope of application. Thus, some modules in PaddleOCR can be applied in other Paddle applications and other fields such as medicine and agriculture as well. It is not necessary to develop another similar application from nothing. This feature benefits both \s.