Quickstart: Search for images using the Bing Image Search REST API and Python

Article
01/05/2022

Warning

On October 30, 2020, the Bing Search APIs moved from Azure AI services to Bing Search Services. This documentation is provided for reference only. For updated documentation, see the Bing search API documentation. For instructions on creating new Azure resources for Bing search, see Create a Bing Search resource through the Azure Marketplace.

Use this quickstart to learn how to send search requests to the Bing Image Search API. This Python application sends a search query to the API, and displays the URL of the first image in the results. Although this application is written in Python, the API is a RESTful web service compatible with most programming languages.

Prerequisites

Create and initialize the application

Create a new Python file in your favorite IDE or editor, and import the following modules. Create a variable for your subscription key, search endpoint, and search term. For search_url, you can use the global endpoint in the following code, or use the custom subdomain endpoint displayed in the Azure portal for your resource.
```
import requests
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
from PIL import Image
from io import BytesIO

subscription_key = "your-subscription-key"
search_url = "https://api.cognitive.microsoft.com/bing/v7.0/images/search"
search_term = "puppies"
```
Add your subscription key to the Ocp-Apim-Subscription-Key header by creating a dictionary, and adding the key as a value.
```
headers = {"Ocp-Apim-Subscription-Key" : subscription_key}
```

Create and send a search request

Create a dictionary for the search request's parameters. Add your search term to the q parameter. Set the license parameter to public to search for images in the public domain. Set the imageType to photo to search only for photos.
```
params  = {"q": search_term, "license": "public", "imageType": "photo"}
```
Use the requests library to call the Bing Image Search API. Add your header and parameters to the request, and return the response as a JSON object. Get the URLs to several thumbnail images from the response's thumbnailUrl field.
```
response = requests.get(search_url, headers=headers, params=params)
response.raise_for_status()
search_results = response.json()
thumbnail_urls = [img["thumbnailUrl"] for img in search_results["value"][:16]]
```

View the response

Create a new figure with four columns and four rows by using the matplotlib library.
Iterate through the figure's rows and columns, and use the PIL library's Image.open() method to add an image thumbnail to each space.

Use plt.show() to draw the figure and display the images.

f, axes = plt.subplots(4, 4)
for i in range(4):
    for j in range(4):
        image_data = requests.get(thumbnail_urls[i+4*j])
        image_data.raise_for_status()
        image = Image.open(BytesIO(image_data.content))        
        axes[i][j].imshow(image)
        axes[i][j].axis("off")
plt.show()

Example JSON response

Responses from the Bing Image Search API are returned as JSON. This sample response has been truncated to show a single result.

{
"_type":"Images",
"instrumentation":{
    "_type":"ResponseInstrumentation"
},
"readLink":"images\/search?q=tropical ocean",
"webSearchUrl":"https:\/\/www.bing.com\/images\/search?q=tropical ocean&FORM=OIIARP",
"totalEstimatedMatches":842,
"nextOffset":47,
"value":[
    {
        "webSearchUrl":"https:\/\/www.bing.com\/images\/search?view=detailv2&FORM=OIIRPO&q=tropical+ocean&id=8607ACDACB243BDEA7E1EF78127DA931E680E3A5&simid=608027248313960152",
        "name":"My Life in the Ocean | The greatest WordPress.com site in ...",
        "thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/tse3.mm.bing.net\/th?id=OIP.fmwSKKmKpmZtJiBDps1kLAHaEo&pid=Api",
        "datePublished":"2017-11-03T08:51:00.0000000Z",
        "contentUrl":"https:\/\/mylifeintheocean.files.wordpress.com\/2012\/11\/tropical-ocean-wallpaper-1920x12003.jpg",
        "hostPageUrl":"https:\/\/mylifeintheocean.wordpress.com\/",
        "contentSize":"897388 B",
        "encodingFormat":"jpeg",
        "hostPageDisplayUrl":"https:\/\/mylifeintheocean.wordpress.com",
        "width":1920,
        "height":1200,
        "thumbnail":{
        "width":474,
        "height":296
        },
        "imageInsightsToken":"ccid_fmwSKKmK*mid_8607ACDACB243BDEA7E1EF78127DA931E680E3A5*simid_608027248313960152*thid_OIP.fmwSKKmKpmZtJiBDps1kLAHaEo",
        "insightsMetadata":{
        "recipeSourcesCount":0,
        "bestRepresentativeQuery":{
            "text":"Tropical Beaches Desktop Wallpaper",
            "displayText":"Tropical Beaches Desktop Wallpaper",
            "webSearchUrl":"https:\/\/www.bing.com\/images\/search?q=Tropical+Beaches+Desktop+Wallpaper&id=8607ACDACB243BDEA7E1EF78127DA931E680E3A5&FORM=IDBQDM"
        },
        "pagesIncludingCount":115,
        "availableSizesCount":44
        },
        "imageId":"8607ACDACB243BDEA7E1EF78127DA931E680E3A5",
        "accentColor":"0050B2"
    }]
}

Next steps

Bing Image Search single-page app tutorial