An idiomatic C++ client library for the Cloud Vision API. Integrate Google Vision features, including image labeling, face, logo, and landmark detection, optical character recognition (OCR), and detection of explicit content, into applications.
While this library is GA, please note Google Cloud C++ client libraries do not follow Semantic Versioning.
Quickstart
The following shows the code that you'll run in the google/cloud/vision/quickstart/ directory, which should give you a taste of the Cloud Vision API C++ client library API.
#include "google/cloud/vision/v1/image_annotator_client.h"
#include <iostream>
int main(int argc, char* argv[]) try {
auto constexpr kDefaultUri =
"gs://cloud-samples-data/vision/label/wakeupcat.jpg";
if (argc > 2) {
std::cerr << "Usage: " << argv[0] << " [gcs-uri]\n"
<< " The gcs-uri must be in gs://... format. It defaults to "
<< kDefaultUri << "\n";
return 1;
}
auto uri = std::string{argc == 2 ? argv[1] : kDefaultUri};
namespace vision = ::google::cloud::vision_v1;
auto client =
vision::ImageAnnotatorClient(vision::MakeImageAnnotatorConnection());
// Define the image we want to annotate
google::cloud::vision::v1::Image image;
image.mutable_source()->set_image_uri(uri);
// Create a request to annotate this image with Request text annotations for a
// file stored in GCS.
google::cloud::vision::v1::AnnotateImageRequest request;
*request.mutable_image() = std::move(image);
request.add_features()->set_type(
google::cloud::vision::v1::Feature::TEXT_DETECTION);
google::cloud::vision::v1::BatchAnnotateImagesRequest batch_request;
*batch_request.add_requests() = std::move(request);
auto batch = client.BatchAnnotateImages(batch_request);
if (!batch) throw std::move(batch).status();
// Find the longest annotation and print it
auto result = std::string{};
for (auto const& response : batch->responses()) {
for (auto const& annotation : response.text_annotations()) {
if (result.size() < annotation.description().size()) {
result = annotation.description();
}
}
}
std::cout << "The image contains this text: " << result << "\n";
return 0;
} catch (google::cloud::Status const& status) {
std::cerr << "google::cloud::Status thrown: " << status << "\n";
return 1;
}
Main classes
This library offers multiple *Client classes, which are listed below. Each one of these classes exposes all the RPCs for a service as member functions of the class. This library groups multiple services because they are part of the same product or are often used together. A typical example may be the administrative and data plane operations for a single product.
The library also has other classes that provide helpers, configuration parameters, and infrastructure to mock the *Client classes when testing your application.
[[["Easy to understand","easyToUnderstand","thumb-up"],["Solved my problem","solvedMyProblem","thumb-up"],["Other","otherUp","thumb-up"]],[["Missing the information I need","missingTheInformationINeed","thumb-down"],["Too complicated / too many steps","tooComplicatedTooManySteps","thumb-down"],["Out of date","outOfDate","thumb-down"],["Samples / code issue","samplesCodeIssue","thumb-down"],["Other","otherDown","thumb-down"]],["Last updated 2025-08-14 UTC."],[[["\u003cp\u003eThis page provides documentation for the Cloud Vision API C++ client library, which allows developers to integrate Google Vision features into their applications.\u003c/p\u003e\n"],["\u003cp\u003eThe latest version of the Cloud Vision API C++ client library is 2.37.0-rc, and the page also lists several previous versions for reference.\u003c/p\u003e\n"],["\u003cp\u003eThe Cloud Vision API C++ client library offers features such as image labeling, face, logo, and landmark detection, OCR, and content moderation.\u003c/p\u003e\n"],["\u003cp\u003eThe library offers \u003ccode\u003eImageAnnotatorClient\u003c/code\u003e and \u003ccode\u003eProductSearchClient\u003c/code\u003e classes to easily access the API's functionalities.\u003c/p\u003e\n"],["\u003cp\u003eThe documentation provides information about error handling, overriding default endpoints, authentication credentials, retry policies, and environment variables for the C++ client library.\u003c/p\u003e\n"]]],[],null,["Version latestkeyboard_arrow_down\n\n- [2.42.0-rc (latest)](/cpp/docs/reference/vision/latest)\n- [2.41.0](/cpp/docs/reference/vision/2.41.0)\n- [2.40.0](/cpp/docs/reference/vision/2.40.0)\n- [2.39.0](/cpp/docs/reference/vision/2.39.0)\n- [2.38.0](/cpp/docs/reference/vision/2.38.0)\n- [2.37.0](/cpp/docs/reference/vision/2.37.0)\n- [2.36.0](/cpp/docs/reference/vision/2.36.0)\n- [2.35.0](/cpp/docs/reference/vision/2.35.0)\n- [2.34.0](/cpp/docs/reference/vision/2.34.0)\n- [2.33.0](/cpp/docs/reference/vision/2.33.0)\n- [2.32.0](/cpp/docs/reference/vision/2.32.0)\n- [2.31.0](/cpp/docs/reference/vision/2.31.0)\n- [2.30.0](/cpp/docs/reference/vision/2.30.0)\n- [2.29.0](/cpp/docs/reference/vision/2.29.0)\n- [2.28.0](/cpp/docs/reference/vision/2.28.0)\n- [2.27.0](/cpp/docs/reference/vision/2.27.0)\n- [2.26.0](/cpp/docs/reference/vision/2.26.0)\n- [2.25.1](/cpp/docs/reference/vision/2.25.1)\n- [2.24.0](/cpp/docs/reference/vision/2.24.0)\n- [2.23.0](/cpp/docs/reference/vision/2.23.0)\n- [2.22.1](/cpp/docs/reference/vision/2.22.1)\n- [2.21.0](/cpp/docs/reference/vision/2.21.0)\n- [2.20.0](/cpp/docs/reference/vision/2.20.0)\n- [2.19.0](/cpp/docs/reference/vision/2.19.0)\n- [2.18.0](/cpp/docs/reference/vision/2.18.0)\n- [2.17.0](/cpp/docs/reference/vision/2.17.0)\n- [2.16.0](/cpp/docs/reference/vision/2.16.0)\n- [2.15.1](/cpp/docs/reference/vision/2.15.1)\n- [2.14.0](/cpp/docs/reference/vision/2.14.0)\n- [2.13.0](/cpp/docs/reference/vision/2.13.0)\n- [2.12.0](/cpp/docs/reference/vision/2.12.0)\n- [2.11.0](/cpp/docs/reference/vision/2.11.0) \n\nCloud Vision API C++ Client Library\n===================================\n\nAn idiomatic C++ client library for the [Cloud Vision API](https://cloud.google.com/vision). Integrate Google Vision features, including image labeling, face, logo, and landmark detection, optical character recognition (OCR), and detection of explicit content, into applications.\n\nWhile this library is **GA** , please note Google Cloud C++ client libraries do **not** follow [Semantic Versioning](https://semver.org/).\n\n### Quickstart\n\nThe following shows the code that you'll run in the `google/cloud/vision/quickstart/` directory, which should give you a taste of the Cloud Vision API C++ client library API. \n\n #include \"google/cloud/vision/v1/image_annotator_client.h\"\n #include \u003ciostream\u003e\n\n int main(int argc, char* argv[]) try {\n auto constexpr kDefaultUri =\n \"gs://cloud-samples-data/vision/label/wakeupcat.jpg\";\n if (argc \u003e 2) {\n std::cerr \u003c\u003c \"Usage: \" \u003c\u003c argv[0] \u003c\u003c \" [gcs-uri]\\n\"\n \u003c\u003c \" The gcs-uri must be in gs://... format. It defaults to \"\n \u003c\u003c kDefaultUri \u003c\u003c \"\\n\";\n return 1;\n }\n auto uri = std::string{argc == 2 ? argv[1] : kDefaultUri};\n\n namespace vision = ::google::cloud::vision_v1;\n auto client =\n vision::ImageAnnotatorClient(vision::MakeImageAnnotatorConnection());\n\n // Define the image we want to annotate\n google::cloud::vision::v1::Image image;\n image.mutable_source()-\u003eset_image_uri(uri);\n // Create a request to annotate this image with Request text annotations for a\n // file stored in GCS.\n google::cloud::vision::v1::AnnotateImageRequest request;\n *request.mutable_image() = std::move(image);\n request.add_features()-\u003eset_type(\n google::cloud::vision::v1::Feature::TEXT_DETECTION);\n\n google::cloud::vision::v1::BatchAnnotateImagesRequest batch_request;\n *batch_request.add_requests() = std::move(request);\n auto batch = client.BatchAnnotateImages(batch_request);\n if (!batch) throw std::move(batch).status();\n\n // Find the longest annotation and print it\n auto result = std::string{};\n for (auto const& response : batch-\u003eresponses()) {\n for (auto const& annotation : response.text_annotations()) {\n if (result.size() \u003c annotation.description().size()) {\n result = annotation.description();\n }\n }\n }\n std::cout \u003c\u003c \"The image contains this text: \" \u003c\u003c result \u003c\u003c \"\\n\";\n\n return 0;\n } catch (google::cloud::Status const& status) {\n std::cerr \u003c\u003c \"google::cloud::Status thrown: \" \u003c\u003c status \u003c\u003c \"\\n\";\n return 1;\n }\n\n### Main classes\n\nThis library offers multiple `*Client` classes, which are listed below. Each one of these classes exposes all the RPCs for a service as member functions of the class. This library groups multiple services because they are part of the same product or are often used together. A typical example may be the administrative and data plane operations for a single product.\n\nThe library also has other classes that provide helpers, configuration parameters, and infrastructure to mock the `*Client` classes when testing your application.\n\n- [`vision_v1::ImageAnnotatorClient`](/cpp/docs/reference/vision/latest/classgoogle_1_1cloud_1_1vision__v1_1_1ImageAnnotatorClient)\n- [`vision_v1::ProductSearchClient`](/cpp/docs/reference/vision/latest/classgoogle_1_1cloud_1_1vision__v1_1_1ProductSearchClient)\n\n### More Information\n\n- [Error Handling](https://cloud.google.com/cpp/docs/reference/common/latest/common-error-handling.html) - describes how the library reports errors.\n- [How to Override the Default Endpoint](/cpp/docs/reference/vision/latest/vision-override-endpoint) - describes how to override the default endpoint.\n- [How to Override the Authentication Credentials](/cpp/docs/reference/vision/latest/vision-override-authentication) - describes how to change the authentication credentials used by the library.\n- [Override Retry, Backoff, and Idempotency Policies](/cpp/docs/reference/vision/latest/vision-override-retry) - describes how to change the default retry policies.\n- [Environment Variables](/cpp/docs/reference/vision/latest/vision-env) - describes environment variables that can configure the behavior of the library."]]