A lightweight, easy-to-use C# library that provides access to Microsoft’s Florence-2-base models for advanced image understanding tasks — including captioning, OCR, object detection, and phrase grounding.
This project gives .NET developers a clean API to run Florence-2 locally without needing Python or the original reference implementation.
📦 NuGet: https://www.nuget.org/packages/Florence2
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Image Captioning Generate concise or richly detailed descriptions of images.
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Optical Character Recognition (OCR) Extract text from entire images or specific regions.
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Region-based OCR Provide bounding boxes and retrieve text only from selected areas.
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Object Detection Detect and label objects with bounding boxes.
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Phrase Grounding (optional) Highlight image regions relevant to a given phrase or textual query.
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Local Model Execution Automatically downloads and loads the Florence-2-base ONNX models.
dotnet add package Florence2Or get it on NuGet: https://www.nuget.org/packages/Florence2
using Florence2;
// Download models if needed
var modelSource = new FlorenceModelDownloader("./models");
await modelSource.DownloadModelsAsync();
// Create model instance
var model = new Florence2Model(modelSource);
// Load an image stream
using var imgStream = File.OpenRead("car.jpg");
// Optional text for phrase grounding (may be null)
string phrase = "the red car";
// Choose a task: Captioning / OCR / ObjectDetection / PhraseGrounding / RegionOCR
var task = TaskTypes.OCR_WITH_REGION;
// Run inference
var results = model.Run(task, imgStream, textInput: phrase);
// View results
Console.WriteLine(JsonSerializer.Serialize(results, new JsonSerializerOptions() { WriteIndented = true }));| Task | Description |
|---|---|
TaskTypes.OCR |
Optical Character Recognition: Extracts all text recognized in the image. |
TaskTypes.OCR_WITH_REGION |
Extracts all text from the image and provides the bounding box (quad-box) for each detected text region. |
TaskTypes.CAPTION |
Generates a brief caption describing the entire image. |
TaskTypes.DETAILED_CAPTION |
Generates a detailed description of the image, covering more elements than the standard caption. |
TaskTypes.MORE_DETAILED_CAPTION |
Generates a highly comprehensive and lengthy description of the image contents. |
TaskTypes.OD |
Object Detection: Detects objects in the image and provides their bounding boxes and class labels. |
TaskTypes.DENSE_REGION_CAPTION |
Detects a large number of regions (densely packed) and provides a caption/label for each bounding box. |
TaskTypes.CAPTION_TO_PHRASE_GROUNDING |
Phrase Grounding: Highlights/localizes regions (bounding boxes) that correspond to specific phrases provided in a text input. |
TaskTypes.REGION_TO_SEGMENTATION |
Generates a segmentation mask for an object defined by a provided bounding box. |
TaskTypes.OPEN_VOCABULARY_DETECTION |
Detects objects matching a provided text prompt (similar to phrase grounding, but often used to detect specific classes). |
TaskTypes.REGION_TO_CATEGORY |
Classifies the object contained within a specific provided bounding box. |
TaskTypes.REGION_TO_DESCRIPTION |
Generates a description or caption for a specific region defined by a provided bounding box. |
TaskTypes.REGION_TO_OCR |
Extracts text specifically from a region defined by a provided bounding box. |
TaskTypes.REGION_PROPOSAL |
Identifies and outputs bounding boxes for salient regions or potential objects in the image without labels. |
Models are downloaded automatically via FlorenceModelDownloader, but you can also supply your own model directory. The library expects Florence-2-base ONNX models compatible with Microsoft’s open-source release.
Contributions, issues, and pull requests are welcome! If you find a bug or have a feature request, feel free to open an issue.
MIT — see the LICENSE file for details.