Using the python module fastAPI, I can't figure out how to return an image. In flask I would do something like this:
@app.route("/vector_image", methods=["POST"])
def image_endpoint():
# img = ... # Create the image here
return Response(img, mimetype="image/png")
what's the corresponding call in this module?
I had a similar issue but with a cv2 image. This may be useful for others. Uses the StreamingResponse.
import io
from starlette.responses import StreamingResponse
app = FastAPI()
@app.post("/vector_image")
def image_endpoint(*, vector):
# Returns a cv2 image array from the document vector
cv2img = my_function(vector)
res, im_png = cv2.imencode(".png", cv2img)
return StreamingResponse(io.BytesIO(im_png.tobytes()), media_type="image/png")
The answer from @SebastiánRamírez pointed me in the right direction, but for those looking to solve the problem, I needed a few lines of code to make it work. I needed to import FileResponse from starlette (not fastAPI?), add CORS support, and return from a temporary file. Perhaps there is a better way, but I couldn't get streaming to work:
from starlette.responses import FileResponse
from starlette.middleware.cors import CORSMiddleware
import tempfile
app = FastAPI()
app.add_middleware(
CORSMiddleware, allow_origins=["*"], allow_methods=["*"], allow_headers=["*"]
)
@app.post("/vector_image")
def image_endpoint(*, vector):
# Returns a raw PNG from the document vector (define here)
img = my_function(vector)
with tempfile.NamedTemporaryFile(mode="w+b", suffix=".png", delete=False) as FOUT:
FOUT.write(img)
return FileResponse(FOUT.name, media_type="image/png")
It's not properly documented yet, but you can use anything from Starlette.
So, you can use a FileResponse if it's a file in disk with a path: https://www.starlette.io/responses/#fileresponse
If it's a file-like object created in your path operation, in the next stable release of Starlette (used internally by FastAPI) you will also be able to return it in a StreamingResponse.
