Send and receive images using Flask, Numpy and OpenCV

client.py

import requests
import json
import cv2

addr = 'http://localhost:5000'
test_url = addr + '/api/test'

# prepare headers for http request
content_type = 'image/jpeg'
headers = {'content-type': content_type}

img = cv2.imread('lena.jpg')
# encode image as jpeg
_, img_encoded = cv2.imencode('.jpg', img)
# send http request with image and receive response
response = requests.post(test_url, data=img_encoded.tostring(), headers=headers)
# decode response
print json.loads(response.text)

# expected output: {u'message': u'image received. size=124x124'}

server.py

from flask import Flask, request, Response
import jsonpickle
import numpy as np
import cv2

# Initialize the Flask application
app = Flask(__name__)


# route http posts to this method
@app.route('/api/test', methods=['POST'])
def test():
    r = request
    # convert string of image data to uint8
    nparr = np.fromstring(r.data, np.uint8)
    # decode image
    img = cv2.imdecode(nparr, cv2.IMREAD_COLOR)

    # do some fancy processing here....

    # build a response dict to send back to client
    response = {'message': 'image received. size={}x{}'.format(img.shape[1], img.shape[0])
                }
    # encode response using jsonpickle
    response_pickled = jsonpickle.encode(response)

    return Response(response=response_pickled, status=200, mimetype="application/json")


# start flask app
app.run(host="0.0.0.0", port=5000)