QuickStart: Analyze image content

Article
08/28/2024

Get started with the Content Studio, REST API, or client SDKs to do basic image moderation. The Azure AI Content Safety service provides you with AI algorithms for flagging objectionable content. Follow these steps to try it out.

For more information on image moderation, see the Harm categories concept page. For API input limits, see the Input requirements section of the Overview.

Note

The sample data and code may contain offensive content. User discretion is advised.

Prerequisites

An Azure subscription - Create one for free
Once you have your Azure subscription, create a Content Safety resource in the Azure portal to get your key and endpoint. Enter a unique name for your resource, select your subscription, and select a resource group, supported region (see Region availability), and supported pricing tier. Then select Create.
- The resource takes a few minutes to deploy. After it finishes, select go to resource. In the left pane, under Resource Management, select Subscription Key and Endpoint. The endpoint and either of the keys are used to call APIs.
cURL installed

Analyze image content

The following section walks through a sample image moderation request with cURL.

Prepare a sample image

Choose a sample image to analyze, and download it to your device.

See Input requirements for the image limitations. If your format is animated, the service will extract the first frame to do the analysis.

You can input your image by one of two methods: local filestream or blob storage URL.

Local filestream (recommended): Encode your image to base64. You can use a website like codebeautify to do the encoding. Then save the encoded string to a temporary location.
Blob storage URL: Upload your image to an Azure Blob Storage account. Follow the blob storage quickstart to learn how to do this. Then open Azure Storage Explorer and get the URL to your image. Save it to a temporary location.

Next, you need to give your Content Safety resource access to read from the Azure Storage resource. Enable system-assigned Managed identity for the Azure AI Content Safety instance and assign the role of Storage Blob Data Contributor/Owner to the identity:

Important

Only Storage Blob Data Contributor or Storage Blob Data Owner are valid roles to proceed.
1. Enable managed identity for the Azure AI Content Safety instance.
2. Assign the role of Storage Blob Data Contributor/Owner to the Managed identity. Any roles highlighted below should work.

Analyze image content

Paste the command below into a text editor, and make the following changes.

Replace <endpoint> with your resource endpoint URL.
Replace <your_subscription_key> with your key.
Populate the "image" field in the body with either a "content" field or a "blobUrl" field. For example: {"image": {"content": "<base_64_string>"} or {"image": {"blobUrl": "<your_storage_url>"}.

curl --location --request POST '<endpoint>/contentsafety/image:analyze?api-version=2024-09-01' \
--header 'Ocp-Apim-Subscription-Key: <your_subscription_key>' \
--header 'Content-Type: application/json' \
--data-raw '{
  "image": {
    "content": "<base_64_string>"
  },
  "categories": ["Hate", "SelfHarm", "Sexual", "Violence"],
  "outputType": "FourSeverityLevels"
}'

Note

If you're using a blob storage URL, the request body should look like this:

{
  "image": {
    "blobUrl": "<your_storage_url>"
  }
}

The below fields must be included in the URL:

Name	Required?	Description	Type
API Version	Required	This is the API version to be checked. Current version is: `api-version=2024-09-01`. Example: `<endpoint>/contentsafety/image:analyze?api-version=2024-09-01`	String

The parameters in the request body are defined in this table:

Name	Required?	Description	Type
content	Required	The content or blob URL of the image. I can be either base64-encoded bytes or a blob URL. If both are given, the request is refused. The maximum allowed size of the image is 7,200 x 7,200 pixels, and the maximum file size is 4 MB. The minimum size of the image is 50 pixels x 50 pixels.	String
categories	Optional	This is assumed to be an array of category names. See the Harm categories guide for a list of available category names. If no categories are specified, all four categories are used. We use multiple categories to get scores in a single request.	String
outputType	Optional	Image moderation API only supports `"FourSeverityLevels"`. Output severities in four levels. The value can be `0,2,4,6`	String

Open a command prompt window and run the cURL command.

Output

You should see the image moderation results displayed as JSON data in the console. For example:

{
  "categoriesAnalysis": [
    {
      "category": "Hate",
      "severity": 2
    },
    {
      "category": "SelfHarm",
      "severity": 0
    },
    {
      "category": "Sexual",
      "severity": 0
    },
    {
      "category": "Violence",
      "severity": 0
    }
  ]
}

The JSON fields in the output are defined here:

Name	Description	Type
categoriesAnalysis	Each output class that the API predicts. Classification can be multi-labeled. For example, when an image is uploaded to the image moderation model, it could be classified as both sexual content and violence. Harm categories	String
Severity	The severity level of the flag in each harm category. Harm categories	Integer

Reference documentation | Library source code | Package (NuGet) | Samples

Prerequisites

An Azure subscription - Create one for free
The Visual Studio IDE with workload .NET desktop development enabled. Or if you don't plan on using Visual Studio IDE, you need the current version of .NET Core.
.NET Runtime installed.
Once you have your Azure subscription, create a Content Safety resource in the Azure portal to get your key and endpoint. Enter a unique name for your resource, select your subscription, and select a resource group, supported region (see Region availability), and supported pricing tier. Then select Create.
- The resource takes a few minutes to deploy. After it finishes, Select go to resource. In the left pane, under Resource Management, select Subscription Key and Endpoint. The endpoint and either of the keys are used to call APIs.

Set up application

Create a new C# application.

Visual Studio IDE
CLI

Open Visual Studio, and under Get started select Create a new project. Set the template filters to C#/All Platforms/Console. Select Console App (command-line application that can run on .NET on Windows, Linux and macOS) and choose Next. Update the project name to ContentSafetyQuickstart and choose Next. Select .NET 6.0 or above, and choose Create to create the project.

Install the client SDK

Once you've created a new project, install the client SDK by right-clicking on the project solution in the Solution Explorer and selecting Manage NuGet Packages. In the package manager that opens select Browse and search for Azure.AI.ContentSafety. Select Install.

In a console window (such as cmd, PowerShell, or Bash), use the dotnet new command to create a new console app with the name content-safety-quickstart. This command creates a simple "Hello World" C# project with a single source file: Program.cs.

dotnet new console -n content-safety-quickstart

Change your directory to the newly created app folder. You can build the application with:

dotnet build

The build output should contain no warnings or errors.

...
Build succeeded.
  0 Warning(s)
  0 Error(s)
...

Install the client SDK

Within the application directory, install the Computer Vision client SDK for .NET with the following command:

dotnet add package Azure.AI.ContentSafety

Create environment variables

In this example, you'll write your credentials to environment variables on the local machine running the application.

To set the environment variable for your key and endpoint, open a console window and follow the instructions for your operating system and development environment.

To set the CONTENT_SAFETY_KEY environment variable, replace YOUR_CONTENT_SAFETY_KEY with one of the keys for your resource.
To set the CONTENT_SAFETY_ENDPOINT environment variable, replace YOUR_CONTENT_SAFETY_ENDPOINT with the endpoint for your resource.

Important

If you use an API key, store it securely somewhere else, such as in Azure Key Vault. Don't include the API key directly in your code, and never post it publicly.

For more information about AI services security, see Authenticate requests to Azure AI services.

Windows
Linux

setx CONTENT_SAFETY_KEY 'YOUR_CONTENT_SAFETY_KEY'

setx CONTENT_SAFETY_ENDPOINT 'YOUR_CONTENT_SAFETY_ENDPOINT'

After you add the environment variables, you might need to restart any running programs that will read the environment variables, including the console window.

export CONTENT_SAFETY_KEY='YOUR_CONTENT_SAFETY_KEY'

export CONTENT_SAFETY_ENDPOINT='YOUR_CONTENT_SAFETY_ENDPOINT'

After you add the environment variables, run source ~/.bashrc from your console window to make the changes effective.

Analyze image content

From the project directory, open the Program.cs file that was created previously. Paste in the following code.

using System;
using Azure.AI.ContentSafety;

namespace Azure.AI.ContentSafety.Dotnet.Sample
{
  class ContentSafetySampleAnalyzeImage
  {
    public static void AnalyzeImage()
    {
      // retrieve the endpoint and key from the environment variables created earlier
      string endpoint = Environment.GetEnvironmentVariable("CONTENT_SAFETY_ENDPOINT");
      string key = Environment.GetEnvironmentVariable("CONTENT_SAFETY_KEY");

      ContentSafetyClient client = new ContentSafetyClient(new Uri(endpoint), new AzureKeyCredential(key));

      // Example: analyze image

      string imagePath = @"sample_data\image.png";
      ContentSafetyImageData image = new ContentSafetyImageData(BinaryData.FromBytes(File.ReadAllBytes(imagePath)));

      var request = new AnalyzeImageOptions(image);

      Response<AnalyzeImageResult> response;
      try
      {
          response = client.AnalyzeImage(request);
      }
      catch (RequestFailedException ex)
      {
          Console.WriteLine("Analyze image failed.\nStatus code: {0}, Error code: {1}, Error message: {2}", ex.Status, ex.ErrorCode, ex.Message);
          throw;
      }

      Console.WriteLine("Hate severity: {0}", response.Value.CategoriesAnalysis.FirstOrDefault(a => a.Category == ImageCategory.Hate)?.Severity ?? 0);
      Console.WriteLine("SelfHarm severity: {0}", response.Value.CategoriesAnalysis.FirstOrDefault(a => a.Category == ImageCategory.SelfHarm)?.Severity ?? 0);
      Console.WriteLine("Sexual severity: {0}", response.Value.CategoriesAnalysis.FirstOrDefault(a => a.Category == ImageCategory.Sexual)?.Severity ?? 0);
      Console.WriteLine("Violence severity: {0}", response.Value.CategoriesAnalysis.FirstOrDefault(a => a.Category == ImageCategory.Violence)?.Severity ?? 0);
    }
    static void Main()
    {
      AnalyzeImage();
    }
  }
}

Create a sample_data folder in your project directory, and add an image.png file into it.

Visual Studio IDE
CLI

Build and run the application by selecting Start Debugging from the Debug menu at the top of the IDE window (or press F5).

Build and run the application from your application directory with these commands:

dotnet build
dotnet run

Reference documentation | Library source code | Package (PyPI) | Samples |

Prerequisites

An Azure subscription - Create one for free
Once you have your Azure subscription, create a Content Safety resource in the Azure portal to get your key and endpoint. Enter a unique name for your resource, select your subscription, and select a resource group, supported region (see Region availability), and supported pricing tier. Then select Create.
- The resource takes a few minutes to deploy. After it finishes, Select go to resource. In the left pane, under Resource Management, select Subscription Key and Endpoint. The endpoint and either of the keys are used to call APIs.
Python 3.8 or later
- Your Python installation should include pip. You can check if you have pip installed by running pip --version on the command line. Get pip by installing the latest version of Python.

Create environment variables

In this example, you'll write your credentials to environment variables on the local machine running the application.

To set the environment variable for your key and endpoint, open a console window and follow the instructions for your operating system and development environment.

To set the CONTENT_SAFETY_KEY environment variable, replace YOUR_CONTENT_SAFETY_KEY with one of the keys for your resource.
To set the CONTENT_SAFETY_ENDPOINT environment variable, replace YOUR_CONTENT_SAFETY_ENDPOINT with the endpoint for your resource.

Important

If you use an API key, store it securely somewhere else, such as in Azure Key Vault. Don't include the API key directly in your code, and never post it publicly.

For more information about AI services security, see Authenticate requests to Azure AI services.

Windows
Linux

setx CONTENT_SAFETY_KEY 'YOUR_CONTENT_SAFETY_KEY'

setx CONTENT_SAFETY_ENDPOINT 'YOUR_CONTENT_SAFETY_ENDPOINT'

After you add the environment variables, you might need to restart any running programs that will read the environment variables, including the console window.

export CONTENT_SAFETY_KEY='YOUR_CONTENT_SAFETY_KEY'

export CONTENT_SAFETY_ENDPOINT='YOUR_CONTENT_SAFETY_ENDPOINT'

After you add the environment variables, run source ~/.bashrc from your console window to make the changes effective.

Analyze image content

The following section walks through a sample request with the Python SDK.

Open a command prompt, navigate to your project folder, and create a new file named quickstart.py.
Run this command to install the Azure AI Content Safety client library:
```
python -m pip install azure-ai-contentsafety
```

Copy the following code into quickstart.py:

import os

from azure.ai.contentsafety import ContentSafetyClient
from azure.ai.contentsafety.models import AnalyzeImageOptions, ImageData, ImageCategory
from azure.core.credentials import AzureKeyCredential
from azure.core.exceptions import HttpResponseError

def analyze_image():
    endpoint = os.environ.get('CONTENT_SAFETY_ENDPOINT')
    key = os.environ.get('CONTENT_SAFETY_KEY')
    image_path = os.path.join("sample_data", "image.jpg")

    # Create an Azure AI Content Safety client
    client = ContentSafetyClient(endpoint, AzureKeyCredential(key))


    # Build request
    with open(image_path, "rb") as file:
        request = AnalyzeImageOptions(image=ImageData(content=file.read()))

    # Analyze image
    try:
        response = client.analyze_image(request)
    except HttpResponseError as e:
        print("Analyze image failed.")
        if e.error:
            print(f"Error code: {e.error.code}")
            print(f"Error message: {e.error.message}")
            raise
        print(e)
        raise

    hate_result = next(item for item in response.categories_analysis if item.category == ImageCategory.HATE)
    self_harm_result = next(item for item in response.categories_analysis if item.category == ImageCategory.SELF_HARM)
    sexual_result = next(item for item in response.categories_analysis if item.category == ImageCategory.SEXUAL)
    violence_result = next(item for item in response.categories_analysis if item.category == ImageCategory.VIOLENCE)

    if hate_result:
        print(f"Hate severity: {hate_result.severity}")
    if self_harm_result:
        print(f"SelfHarm severity: {self_harm_result.severity}")
    if sexual_result:
        print(f"Sexual severity: {sexual_result.severity}")
    if violence_result:
        print(f"Violence severity: {violence_result.severity}")

if __name__ == "__main__":
    analyze_image()

Replace "sample_data" and "image.jpg" with the path and filename of the local you want to use.
Then run the application with the python command on your quickstart file.
```
python quickstart.py
```

Reference documentation | Library source code | Artifact (Maven) | Samples

Prerequisites

An Azure subscription - Create one for free
The current version of the Java Development Kit (JDK)
The Gradle build tool, or another dependency manager.
Once you have your Azure subscription, create a Content Safety resource in the Azure portal to get your key and endpoint. Enter a unique name for your resource, select your subscription, and select a resource group, supported region (see Region availability), and supported pricing tier. Then select Create.
- The resource takes a few minutes to deploy. After it finishes, Select go to resource. In the left pane, under Resource Management, select Subscription Key and Endpoint. The endpoint and either of the keys are used to call APIs.

Set up application

Create a new Gradle project.

In a console window (such as cmd, PowerShell, or Bash), create a new directory for your app, and navigate to it.

mkdir myapp && cd myapp

Run the gradle init command from your working directory. This command will create essential build files for Gradle, including build.gradle.kts, which is used at runtime to create and configure your application.

gradle init --type basic

When prompted to choose a DSL, select Kotlin.

From your working directory, run the following command to create a project source folder:

mkdir -p src/main/java

Navigate to the new folder and create a file called ContentSafetyQuickstart.java.

Also create a src/resources folder at the root of your project, and add a sample image to it.

Install the client SDK

This quickstart uses the Gradle dependency manager. You can find the client library and information for other dependency managers on the Maven Central Repository.

Locate build.gradle.kts and open it with your preferred IDE or text editor. Then copy in the following build configuration. This configuration defines the project as a Java application whose entry point is the class ContentSafetyQuickstart. It imports the Azure AI Vision library.

plugins {
    java
    application
}
application { 
    mainClass.set("ContentSafetyQuickstart")
}
repositories {
    mavenCentral()
}
dependencies {
    implementation(group = "com.azure", name = "azure-ai-contentsafety", version = "1.0.0")
}

Create environment variables

In this example, you'll write your credentials to environment variables on the local machine running the application.

To set the environment variable for your key and endpoint, open a console window and follow the instructions for your operating system and development environment.

To set the CONTENT_SAFETY_KEY environment variable, replace YOUR_CONTENT_SAFETY_KEY with one of the keys for your resource.
To set the CONTENT_SAFETY_ENDPOINT environment variable, replace YOUR_CONTENT_SAFETY_ENDPOINT with the endpoint for your resource.

Important

If you use an API key, store it securely somewhere else, such as in Azure Key Vault. Don't include the API key directly in your code, and never post it publicly.

For more information about AI services security, see Authenticate requests to Azure AI services.

Windows
Linux

setx CONTENT_SAFETY_KEY 'YOUR_CONTENT_SAFETY_KEY'

setx CONTENT_SAFETY_ENDPOINT 'YOUR_CONTENT_SAFETY_ENDPOINT'

After you add the environment variables, you might need to restart any running programs that will read the environment variables, including the console window.

export CONTENT_SAFETY_KEY='YOUR_CONTENT_SAFETY_KEY'

export CONTENT_SAFETY_ENDPOINT='YOUR_CONTENT_SAFETY_ENDPOINT'

After you add the environment variables, run source ~/.bashrc from your console window to make the changes effective.

Analyze image content

Open ContentSafetyQuickstart.java in your preferred editor or IDE and paste in the following code. Replace the source variable with the path to your sample image.

import com.azure.ai.contentsafety.ContentSafetyClient;
import com.azure.ai.contentsafety.ContentSafetyClientBuilder;
import com.azure.ai.contentsafety.models.AnalyzeImageOptions;
import com.azure.ai.contentsafety.models.AnalyzeImageResult;
import com.azure.ai.contentsafety.models.ContentSafetyImageData;
import com.azure.ai.contentsafety.models.ImageCategoriesAnalysis;
import com.azure.core.credential.KeyCredential;
import com.azure.core.util.BinaryData;
import com.azure.core.util.Configuration;

import java.io.IOException;
import java.nio.file.Files;
import java.nio.file.Paths;


public class ContentSafetyQuickstart {
    public static void main(String[] args) throws IOException {

        // get endpoint and key from environment variables
        String endpoint = System.getenv("CONTENT_SAFETY_ENDPOINT");
        String key = System.getenv("CONTENT_SAFETY_KEY");

        ContentSafetyClient contentSafetyClient = new ContentSafetyClientBuilder()
            .credential(new KeyCredential(key))
            .endpoint(endpoint).buildClient();

        ContentSafetyImageData image = new ContentSafetyImageData();
        String cwd = System.getProperty("user.dir");
        String source = "/src/samples/resources/image.png";

        image.setContent(BinaryData.fromBytes(Files.readAllBytes(Paths.get(cwd, source))));

        AnalyzeImageResult response =
                contentSafetyClient.analyzeImage(new AnalyzeImageOptions(image));

        for (ImageCategoriesAnalysis result : response.getCategoriesAnalysis()) {
            System.out.println(result.getCategory() + " severity: " + result.getSeverity());
        }
    }
}

Navigate back to the project root folder, and build the app with:

gradle build

Then, run it with the gradle run command:

gradle run

Output

Hate severity: 0
SelfHarm severity: 0
Sexual severity: 0
Violence severity: 0

Reference documentation | Library source code | Package (npm) | Samples |

Prerequisites

An Azure subscription - Create one for free
The current version of Node.js
Once you have your Azure subscription, create a Content Safety resource in the Azure portal to get your key and endpoint. Enter a unique name for your resource, select your subscription, and select a resource group, supported region (see Region availability), and supported pricing tier. Then select Create.
- The resource takes a few minutes to deploy. After it finishes, Select go to resource. In the left pane, under Resource Management, select Subscription Key and Endpoint. The endpoint and either of the keys are used to call APIs.

Set up application

Create a new Node.js application. In a console window (such as cmd, PowerShell, or Bash), create a new directory for your app, and navigate to it.

mkdir myapp && cd myapp

Run the npm init command to create a node application with a package.json file.

npm init

Also create a /resources folder at the root of your project, and add a sample image to it.

Install the client SDK

Install the @azure-rest/ai-content-safety npm package:

npm install @azure-rest/ai-content-safety

Also install the dotenv module to use environment variables:

npm install dotenv

Your app's package.json file will be updated with the dependencies.

Create environment variables

In this example, you'll write your credentials to environment variables on the local machine running the application.

To set the environment variable for your key and endpoint, open a console window and follow the instructions for your operating system and development environment.

To set the CONTENT_SAFETY_KEY environment variable, replace YOUR_CONTENT_SAFETY_KEY with one of the keys for your resource.
To set the CONTENT_SAFETY_ENDPOINT environment variable, replace YOUR_CONTENT_SAFETY_ENDPOINT with the endpoint for your resource.

Important

If you use an API key, store it securely somewhere else, such as in Azure Key Vault. Don't include the API key directly in your code, and never post it publicly.

For more information about AI services security, see Authenticate requests to Azure AI services.

Windows
Linux

setx CONTENT_SAFETY_KEY 'YOUR_CONTENT_SAFETY_KEY'

setx CONTENT_SAFETY_ENDPOINT 'YOUR_CONTENT_SAFETY_ENDPOINT'

After you add the environment variables, you might need to restart any running programs that will read the environment variables, including the console window.

export CONTENT_SAFETY_KEY='YOUR_CONTENT_SAFETY_KEY'

export CONTENT_SAFETY_ENDPOINT='YOUR_CONTENT_SAFETY_ENDPOINT'

After you add the environment variables, run source ~/.bashrc from your console window to make the changes effective.

Analyze image content

Create a new file in your directory, index.js. Open it in your preferred editor or IDE and paste in the following code. Replace the image_path variable with the path to your sample image.

const ContentSafetyClient = require("@azure-rest/ai-content-safety").default,
  { isUnexpected } = require("@azure-rest/ai-content-safety");
const { AzureKeyCredential } = require("@azure/core-auth");
const fs = require("fs");
const path = require("path");

// Load the .env file if it exists
require("dotenv").config();

async function main() {
    // get endpoint and key from environment variables
    const endpoint = process.env["CONTENT_SAFETY_ENDPOINT"];
    const key = process.env["CONTENT_SAFETY_KEY"];
    
    const credential = new AzureKeyCredential(key);
    const client = ContentSafetyClient(endpoint, credential);
    
    // replace with your own sample image file path 
    const image_path = path.resolve(__dirname, "./resources/image.jpg");
    
    const imageBuffer = fs.readFileSync(image_path);
    const base64Image = imageBuffer.toString("base64");
    const analyzeImageOption = { image: { content: base64Image } };
    const analyzeImageParameters = { body: analyzeImageOption };
    
    const result = await client.path("/image:analyze").post(analyzeImageParameters);
    
    if (isUnexpected(result)) {
        throw result;
    }
    for (let i = 0; i < result.body.categoriesAnalysis.length; i++) {
    const imageCategoriesAnalysisOutput = result.body.categoriesAnalysis[i];
    console.log(
      imageCategoriesAnalysisOutput.category,
      " severity: ",
      imageCategoriesAnalysisOutput.severity
    );
  }
}

main().catch((err) => {
    console.error("The sample encountered an error:", err);
});

Run the application with the node command on your quickstart file.

node index.js

Output

Hate severity:  0
SelfHarm severity:  0
Sexual severity:  0
Violence severity:  0

Clean up resources

If you want to clean up and remove an Azure AI services subscription, you can delete the resource or resource group. Deleting the resource group also deletes any other resources associated with it.

Harm categories
Configure filters for each category and test on datasets using Content Safety Studio, export the code and deploy.

Share via

QuickStart: Analyze image content

Prerequisites

Analyze image content

Prepare a sample image

Analyze image content

Output

Prerequisites

Set up application

Install the client SDK

Install the client SDK

Create environment variables

Analyze image content

Prerequisites

Create environment variables

Analyze image content

Prerequisites

Set up application

Install the client SDK

Create environment variables

Analyze image content

Output

Prerequisites

Set up application

Install the client SDK

Create environment variables

Analyze image content

Output

Clean up resources

Feedback

Additional resources

Share via

QuickStart: Analyze image content

Prerequisites

Analyze image content

Prepare a sample image

Analyze image content

Output

Prerequisites

Set up application

Install the client SDK

Create environment variables

Analyze image content

Prerequisites

Create environment variables

Analyze image content

Prerequisites

Set up application

Install the client SDK

Create environment variables

Analyze image content

Output

Prerequisites

Set up application

Install the client SDK

Create environment variables

Analyze image content

Output

Clean up resources

Related content

Feedback

Additional resources