[Feature] Use camera for thumbnails & OCR to get expiration label

[upbox-org]

Hi, just a simple idea that is probably not so simple to implement:
Use the camera to scan the date of the product via OCR and to make a photo of it to use as a thumbnail.
Make naming optional. 

So lazy people, like me, can just use the app via camera:

1. Make a photo of the date label. App recognize & translates date via OCR.
2. Make a photo for a thumbnail to recognize the product.
3. Next product.

[lorenzovngl]

Hello,
thank you for this suggestion. I will implement these features in the app soon.

[BenChampion]

This is a great idea. I was trying to get something similar working a few years back (probably more like 5 years actually) . It was hit-and-miss with the OCR technology of the time.

I've noticed a some things have changed since my last attempts:

• OCR has gotten WAY better and WAY more available
• The frequency of dot-matrix characters in expiry date labels seems to be decreasing (anecdotally). This is good because I found these especially challenging for OCR.
• Text processing for handling the wide range of date formats is probably way better now too.

I'd be really keen to help implement this feature. I'm a Android app n00b but can probably just about figure out implementing the OCR backend part if you tell me where I should put the code.