Soundify - Arabic OCR & Text-to-Speech

Soundify is a Python desktop application that converts Arabic text from images into spoken audio. It offers two OCR recognition modes in a single unified interface:

Full Text (Tesseract): For recognizing sentences, paragraphs, or full pages of Arabic text
Character (CNN): For recognizing single Arabic characters using a custom-trained neural network

Features

Dual OCR Modes: Switch between Tesseract (full text) and CNN (single character) recognition
Image Input Options:
- Live camera feed capture
- File upload from local storage
Text-to-Speech: Automatically converts recognized text to speech (MP3)
Modern GUI: Dark/Light theme toggle with customtkinter
Robust Error Handling: Gracefully handles missing dependencies

Project Structure

soundify.py: Main application with unified Tesseract & CNN modes
utils_tesseract.py: Tesseract OCR integration functions
utils_cnn.py: CNN model prediction and character mapping
model_training_notebook.ipynb: Jupyter notebook for CNN model training
model/arabic-OCR.h5: Pre-trained CNN model (72MB)
assets/: GUI icons and images
requirements.txt: Python dependencies

Installation

Prerequisites

Python 3.7+
Tesseract OCR (Required for Full Text mode)
- Windows: Download from UB-Mannheim/tesseract
- Add Tesseract to your system PATH
- Install Arabic language data during setup

Installation Steps

Clone the repository:

git clone https://github.com/3bsalam-1/Arabic-OCR.git
cd Arabic-OCR/Code

Install Python dependencies:
```
pip install -r requirements.txt
```
This will install:
- customtkinter - Modern GUI framework
- opencv-python - Camera and image processing
- Pillow - Image manipulation
- pygame - Audio playback
- pytesseract - Tesseract OCR wrapper
- gTTS - Google Text-to-Speech
- tensorflow - CNN model (large package ~330MB)
Download the CNN Model (Required for Character mode):
- The pre-trained model file arabic-OCR.h5 (72MB) is not included in the repository
- Download it from: Release Page or contact the author
- Place it in the model/ directory: Code/model/arabic-OCR.h5
- If you skip this step, only Tesseract mode will work

Usage

Running the Application

python soundify.py

Mode Selection

Use the mode switcher at the bottom-left of the window:

Full Text (Tesseract): Best for sentences, paragraphs, or documents
- Requires: Tesseract OCR installed on your system
- Use case: Reading full pages, signs, documents
Character (CNN): Best for single Arabic characters
- Requires: Tensorflow (installed via requirements.txt)
- Use case: Individual letter recognition

Controls

Button	Function
Browse	Select an image file from your computer
Camera	Toggle live camera feed on/off
📷 Icon	Capture current camera frame
🔊 Icon	Play audio of recognized text
📝 Icon	Display recognized text on screen
Theme	Switch between Light/Dark mode

Workflow

Select your preferred mode (Tesseract or CNN)
Choose input method:
- Click Browse to select an image file, OR
- Click Camera to enable live feed, then click 📷 to capture
Click 🔊 to hear the text read aloud
Click 📝 to see the recognized text

Troubleshooting

“Tesseract is not installed or not found in PATH”

Install Tesseract OCR from the link above
Ensure it’s added to your system PATH
Restart your terminal/IDE after installation

“CNN Model or Tensorflow not found”

Run: pip install tensorflow
Note: This is a large package (~330MB) and may take time to download

Camera not working

Ensure your camera is not being used by another application
Check camera permissions in your system settings
The app will show “Camera not accessible” if no camera is detected

No audio playback

Ensure test.mp3 is being generated in the project directory
Check your system audio settings
Verify pygame is installed: pip install pygame

Dependencies

All dependencies are listed in requirements.txt:

customtkinter
opencv-python
Pillow
pygame
pytesseract
gTTS
tensorflow

Credits

Author: 3bsalam-1
Last Updated: December 2025