Receive a Base64 encoded image in Django Rest Framework and save into ImageField

Question

I need to receive an image from an app, and the best way I can think of is to send it into a JSON array encoded in Base64. The image is very small so I don't care about the extra overhead.

I have a model :

class Observation(models.Model):    
    ...
    sonogram_image = models.ImageField(upload_to=sonogram_dir)

And its serialiser:

class ObsvSerializerNoDetect(serializers.HyperlinkedModelSerializer):

    class Meta:
        model = Observation

Where should I put the code to decode the image?

Answer 1

Here is how you can handle a Base64 encoded image file in a post request at the Django-based (drf also) API end which saves it as an ImageField.

Let say you have a Model as follows:

Class MyImageModel(models.Model):
      image = models.ImageField(upload_to = 'geo_entity_pic')
      data=model.CharField()

So the Corresponding Serializer would be as follows:

 from drf_extra_fields.fields import Base64ImageField

 Class MyImageModelSerializer(serializers.ModelSerializers):
      image=Base64ImageField() # From DRF Extra Fields
      class Meta:
         model=MyImageModel
         fields= ('data','image')
      def create(self, validated_data):
        image=validated_data.pop('image')
        data=validated_data.pop('data')
       return MyImageModel.objects.create(data=data,image=image)

The corresponding View can be as follows:

elif request.method == 'POST':
    serializer = MyImageModelSerializer(data=request.data)
    if serializer.is_valid():
        serializer.save()
        return Response(serializer.data, status=201)
    return Response(serializer.errors, status=400)

Notice In the Serializer I have used Implementation of Base64ImageField provided in the module django-extra-field

To install this module run the command

pip install django-extra-fields

Import the same and Done!

Send (via post method) your image as an Base64 encoded String in JSON object along with any other data you have.