Migrating from Mobile Vision to ML Kit on iOS

  • This guide provides step-by-step instructions for migrating projects from Google Mobile Vision (GMV) to ML Kit on iOS for features like Barcode Scanning, Face Detection, and Text Recognition.

  • Before starting the migration, ensure you have Xcode 13.2.1 or later, iOS 15.5 or greater, and a 64-bit architecture (x86_64 or arm64), as ML Kit no longer supports 32-bit architectures.

  • Update your app's Podfile to replace GMV pods with their corresponding ML Kit pods listed in the provided table.

  • Understand the key API changes which include using MLKVisionImage for input, dedicated options classes for detector settings, specific classes for creating detectors, support for both synchronous and asynchronous detection, and changes in classes and methods for each API.

  • Refer to the detailed API-specific changes for Face Detection, Barcode Scanning, and Text Recognition to map GMV classes and methods to their ML Kit counterparts.

This document covers the steps you need to take to migrate your projects from Google Mobile Vision (GMV) to ML Kit on iOS.

Prerequisites

Before you start to migrate your code, be sure you meet these requirements:

  • ML Kit supports Xcode 13.2.1 or later.
  • ML Kit supports iOS version 15.5 or greater.
  • ML Kit doesn't support 32-bit architectures (i386 and armv7). ML Kit does support 64-bit architectures (x86_64 and arm64).

Update cocoapods

Update the dependencies for the ML Kit iOS cocoapods in your app’s Podfile:

APIGMV PodML Kit Pod
Barcode scanning GoogleMobileVision/BarcodeDetector GoogleMLKit/BarcodeScanning
Face detection GoogleMobileVision/FaceDetector GoogleMLKit/FaceDetection
Text recognition GoogleMobileVision/TextDetector GoogleMLKit/TextRecognition

Overall API changes

These changes apply to all APIs:

  • GMV’s inference APIs take UIImage or CMSampleBufferRef as input. ML Kit wraps them inside an MLKVisionImage and takes that as input.
  • GMV uses NSDictionary to pass various detector options. ML Kit uses dedicated options classes for that purpose.
  • GMV passes the detector type to the single GMVDetector class when it creats a detector. ML Kit uses dedicated classes to create separate detector, scanner, and recognizer instances.
  • GMV's APIs support synchronous detection only. ML Kit's inference APIs can be called synchronously and asynchronously.
  • GMV extends AVCaptureVideoDataOutput and provides a multi-detector framework for performing multiple detections at the same time. ML Kit doesn't provide such mechanisms, but the same functionality can be implemented by the developer if desired.

API-specific changes

This section describes corresponding GMV and ML Kit classes and methods for each Vision API, and shows how to initialize the API.

FaceDetector

Recode the initialization as shown in this example:

GMV

NSDictionary *options = @{
    GMVDetectorFaceMode : @(GMVDetectorFaceAccurateMode),
    GMVDetectorFaceClassificationType : @(GMVDetectorFaceClassificationAll),
    GMVDetectorFaceLandmarkType : @(GMVDetectorFaceLandmarkAll)
};
GMVDetector *faceDetector =
    [GMVDetector detectorOfType:GMVDetectorTypeFace options:options];

ML Kit

MLKFaceDetectorOptions *options = [[MLKFaceDetectorOptions alloc] init];
options.performanceMode = MLKFaceDetectorPerformanceModeAccurate;
options.classificationMode = MLKFaceDetectorClassificationModeAll;
options.landmarkMode = MLKFaceDetectorLandmarkModeAll;
MLKFaceDetector *faceDetector = [MLKFaceDetector faceDetectorWithOptions:options];

GMVDetector has two different detection APIs. Both are synchronous operations:

- (nullable NSArray<__kindof GMVFeature *> *)
    featuresInImage:(UIImage *)image
            options:(nullable NSDictionary *)options;

- (nullable NSArray<__kindof GMVFeature *> *)
    featuresInBuffer:(CMSampleBufferRef)sampleBuffer
             options:(nullable NSDictionary *)options;

Replace GMVDetector with MLKFaceDetector. The inference API can be called synchronously or asynchronously.

Synchronous

- (nullable NSArray<MLKFace *> *)
    resultsInImage:(MLKVisionImage *)image
             error:(NSError **)error;

Asynchronous

- (void)processImage:(MLKVisionImage *)image
    Completion:
        (MLKFaceDetectionCallback)completion
    NS_SWIFT_NAME(process(_:completion:));

Change the following classes, methods, and names:

GMV ML Kit
GMVFaceFeature MLKFace
GMVFaceContour MLKFaceContour
GMVDetectorImageOrientation MLKVisionImage.orientation
NSDictionary of face detection options MLKFaceDetectorOptions
GMVDetectorFaceFastMode Set MLKFaceDetectorOptions.performanceMode to MLKFaceDetectorPerformanceModeFast
GMVDetectorFaceAccurateMode Set MLKFaceDetectorOptions.performanceMode to MLKFaceDetectorPerformanceModeAccurate
GMVDetectorFaceSelfieMode Set MLKFaceDetectorOptions.contourMode to MLKFaceDetectorContourModeAll
GMVDetectorFaceLandmarkType MLKFaceDetectorOptions.landmarkMode
GMVDetectorFaceLandmarkNone Set MLKFaceDetectorOptions.landmarkMode to MLKFaceDetectorLandmarkModeNone
GMVDetectorFaceLandmarkAll Set MLKFaceDetectorOptions.landmarkMode to MLKFaceDetectorLandmarkModeAll
GMVDetectorFaceLandmarkContour Set MLKFaceDetectorOptions.contourMode to MLKFaceDetectorContourModeAll
GMVDetectorFaceClassificationType MLKFaceDetectorOptions.classificationMode
GMVDetectorFaceClassificationNone Set MLKFaceDetectorOptions.classificationMode to MLKFaceDetectorClassificationModeNone
GMVDetectorFaceClassificationAll Set MLKFaceDetectorOptions.classificationMode to MLKFaceDetectorClassificationModeAll
GMVDetectorFaceTrackingEnabled MLKFaceDetectorOptions.trackingEnabled
GMVDetectorProminentFaceOnly Set MLKFaceDetectorOptions.contourMode to MLKFaceDetectorContourModeAll
GMVDetectorFaceMinSize MLKFaceDetectorOptions.minFaceSize

BarcodeDetector

Recode the initialization as shown in this example:

GMV

NSDictionary *options = @{
    GMVDetectorBarcodeFormats : @(GMVDetectorBarcodeFormatCode128 |
                                  GMVDetectorBarcodeFormatQRCode)
};
GMVDetector *barcodeDetector =
    [GMVDetector detectorOfType:GMVDetectorTypeBarcode options:options];

ML Kit

MLKBarcodeScannerOptions *options = [[MLKBarcodeScannerOptions alloc] init];
options.formats = MLKBarcodeFormatCode128 | MLKBarcodeFormatQRCode;
MLKBarcodeScanner *barcodeScanner =
    [MLKBarcodeScanner barcodeScannerWithOptions:options];

GMVDetector has two different detection APIs. Both are synchronous operations:

- (nullable NSArray<__kindof GMVFeature *> *)
    featuresInImage:(UIImage *)image
            options:(nullable NSDictionary *)options;

- (nullable NSArray<__kindof GMVFeature *> *)
    featuresInBuffer:(CMSampleBufferRef)sampleBuffer
             options:(nullable NSDictionary *)options;

Replace GMVDetector with MLKBarcodeScanner. The inference API can be called synchronously or asynchronously.

Synchronous

- (nullable NSArray<MLKBarcode *> *)
    resultsInImage:(MLKVisionImage *)image
             error:(NSError **)error;

Asynchronous

- (void)processImage:(MLKVisionImage *)image
    Completion:
        (MLKBarcodeScanningCallback)completion
    NS_SWIFT_NAME(process(_:completion:));

Change the following classes, methods, and names:

GMV ML Kit
GMVDetectorImageOrientation MLKVisionImage.orientation
NSDictionary of barcode detector options MLKBarcodeScannerOptions
GMVDetectorBarcodeFormats MLKBarcodeScannerOptions.formats
GMVBarcodeFeature MLKBarcode
GMVBarcodeFeatureAddress MLKBarcodeAddress
GMVBarcodeFeatureCalendarEvent MLKBarcodeCalendarEvent
GMVBarcodeFeatureContactInfo MLKBarcodeContactInfo
GMVBarcodeFeatureDriverLicense MLKBarcodeDriverLicense
GMVBarcodeFeatureEmail MLKBarcodeEmail
GMVBarcodeFeatureGeoPoint MLKBarcodeGeoPoint
GMVBarcodeFeaturePersonName MLKBarcodePersonName
GMVBarcodeFeaturePhone MLKBarcodePhone
GMVBarcodeFeatureSMS MLKBarcodeSMS
GMVBarcodeFeatureURLBookmark MLKBarcodeURLBookmark
GMVBarcodeFeatureWiFi MLKBarcodeWiFi

TextRecognition

Recode the initialization as shown in this example:

GMV

GMVDetector *textDetector =
    [GMVDetector detectorOfType:GMVDetectorTypeText options:nil];

ML Kit

MLKTextRecognizer *textRecognizer = [MLKTextRecognizer textRecognizer];

GMVDetector has two different detection APIs. Both are synchronous operations:

- (nullable NSArray<__kindof GMVFeature *> *)
    featuresInImage:(UIImage *)image
            options:(nullable NSDictionary *)options;

- (nullable NSArray<__kindof GMVFeature *> *)
    featuresInBuffer:(CMSampleBufferRef)sampleBuffer
             options:(nullable NSDictionary *)options;

Replace GMVDetector with MLKTextRecognizer. The inference API can be called synchronously or asynchronously.

Synchronous

- (nullable MLKText *)
    resultsInImage:(MLKVisionImage *)image
             error:(NSError **)error;

Asynchronous

- (void)processImage:(MLKVisionImage *)image
    Completion:
        (MLKTextRecognitionCallback)completion
    NS_SWIFT_NAME(process(_:completion:));

Change the following classes, methods, and names:

GMV ML Kit
GMVDetectorImageOrientation MLKVisionImage.orientation
GMVTextBlockFeature MLKTextBlock
GMVTextElementFeature MLKTextElement
GMVTextLineFeature MLKTextLine

Getting help

If you run into any issues, check out our Community page where we outline the channels available for getting in touch with us.