kiri-ocr 0.2.5

A lightweight OCR library for Khmer and English documents

Kiri OCR 📄

Kiri OCR is a lightweight OCR library for English and Khmer documents. It provides document-level text detection, recognition, and rendering capabilities in a compact package.

🚀 Try the Live Demo

✨ Key Features

• High Accuracy: Transformer model with hybrid CTC + attention decoder
• Bi-lingual: Native support for English and Khmer (and mixed text)
• Document Processing: Automatic text line and word detection
• Easy to Use: Simple Python API and CLI
• Lightweight: Compact model with efficient inference

📊 Dataset

The model is trained on the mrrtmob/khmer_english_ocr_image_line dataset, which contains 12 million synthetic images of Khmer and English text lines.

📈 Benchmark

Results on synthetic test images (10 popular fonts):

📦 Installation

Install via pip:

pip install kiri-ocr

Or install from source:

git clone https://github.com/mrrtmob/kiri-ocr.git
cd kiri-ocr
pip install -e .

💻 Quick Start

CLI Tool

# Run OCR on an image
kiri-ocr predict document.jpg --output results/

# Or simply
kiri-ocr document.jpg

# Stream text character-by-character (LLM style) ⚡
kiri-ocr predict document.jpg --stream

Python API

from kiri_ocr import OCR

# Initialize (auto-downloads from Hugging Face)
ocr = OCR()

# Extract text from document
text, results = ocr.extract_text('document.jpg')
print(text)

# Get detailed results with confidence scores
for line in results:
    print(f"{line['text']} (confidence: {line['confidence']:.1%})")

Single Line Recognition

from kiri_ocr import OCR

ocr = OCR(device='cuda')

# Recognize a single text line image
text, confidence = ocr.recognize_single_line_image('text_line.png')
print(f"'{text}' ({confidence:.1%})")

Streaming API (Real-time)

Stream output character-by-character, similar to LLM text generation:

from kiri_ocr import OCR

ocr = OCR()

# Stream full document
for chunk in ocr.extract_text_stream_chars('document.jpg'):
    if chunk['region_start']:
        print(f"\n[Region {chunk['region_number']}] ", end='')
    print(chunk['token'], end='', flush=True)

# Stream single line image
for chunk in ocr.recognize_streaming('line.png'):
    print(chunk['token'], end='', flush=True)

---

🎓 Training Models

Kiri OCR uses a Transformer architecture with:

• CNN backbone for visual feature extraction
• Transformer encoder for contextual understanding
• CTC head for fast alignment-free decoding
• Attention decoder for accurate sequence generation
• CNN backbone for visual feature extraction
• Transformer encoder for contextual understanding
• CTC head for fast alignment-free decoding
• Attention decoder for accurate sequence generation

Basic Training

kiri-ocr train \
    --hf-dataset mrrtmob/khmer_english_ocr_image_line \
    --output-dir output \
    --epochs 100 \
    --batch-size 32 \
    --device cuda

Full Configuration

kiri-ocr train \
    --hf-dataset mrrtmob/khmer_english_ocr_image_line \
    --output-dir output \
    --height 48 \
    --width 640 \
    --batch-size 32 \
    --epochs 100 \
    --lr 0.0003 \
    --weight-decay 0.01 \
    --ctc-weight 0.5 \
    --dec-weight 0.5 \
    --max-seq-len 512 \
    --save-steps 5000 \
    --device cuda

Training Arguments

Argument	Default	Description
--height	48	Image height
--width	640	Image width
--batch-size	32	Training batch size
--epochs	100	Number of training epochs
--lr	0.0003	Learning rate
--ctc-weight	0.5	Weight for CTC loss
--dec-weight	0.5	Weight for decoder loss
--vocab	Auto	Path to vocab.json (auto-generated if not provided)
--save-steps	1000	Save checkpoint every N steps
--max-seq-len	512	Maximum decoder sequence length (prevents OOM)
--resume	False	Resume from latest checkpoint

Resume Training

If training is interrupted:

kiri-ocr train \
    --hf-dataset mrrtmob/khmer_english_ocr_image_line \
    --output-dir output \
    --epochs 100 \
    --resume \
    --device cuda

---

☁️ Google Colab Training

# Cell 1: Setup
!pip install -q kiri-ocr datasets

from google.colab import drive
drive.mount('/content/drive')

# Cell 2: Train
!kiri-ocr train \
    --hf-dataset mrrtmob/khmer_english_ocr_image_line \
    --output-dir /content/drive/MyDrive/kiri_models/v1 \
    --height 48 \
    --width 640 \
    --batch-size 32 \
    --epochs 100 \
    --lr 0.0003 \
    --ctc-weight 0.5 \
    --dec-weight 0.5 \
    --save-steps 5000 \
    --device cuda

# Cell 3: Test
from kiri_ocr import OCR

ocr = OCR(
    model_path="/content/drive/MyDrive/kiri_models/v1/model.safetensors",
    device="cuda"
)

text, confidence = ocr.recognize_single_line_image("test.png")
print(f"'{text}' ({confidence:.1%})")

Training Time Estimates (Colab T4 GPU)

Dataset Size	Epochs	Time
10K samples	100	~10 hours
50K samples	100	~24 hours
100K samples	100	~48 hours

---

📁 Output Files

After training, your output directory will contain:

output/
├── vocab.json               # Vocabulary (required for inference!)
├── model.safetensors        # Best model weights (safetensors format)
├── model_meta.json          # Model config metadata
├── model_optim.pt           # Optimizer state
├── latest.safetensors       # Latest checkpoint (for resume)
├── latest_meta.json         # Latest config metadata
├── latest_optim.pt          # Latest optimizer state
└── history.json             # Training metrics

Note: Safetensors format is used for model weights with separate JSON metadata files. Legacy .pt format is still supported for loading.

---

🔧 Using Custom Models

Load Custom Model

from kiri_ocr import OCR

# Load your trained model (safetensors format)
ocr = OCR(
    model_path="output/model.safetensors",
    device="cuda"
)

# Also supports legacy .pt format
ocr = OCR(
    model_path="output/model.pt",
    device="cuda"
)

# Works the same as default model
text, confidence = ocr.recognize_single_line_image("image.png")
print(f"'{text}' ({confidence:.1%})")

Load from Hugging Face

from kiri_ocr import OCR

# Default model (CRNN)
ocr = OCR(model_path="mrrtmob/kiri-ocr")

# Or specify explicitly
ocr = OCR(model_path="your-username/your-model")

---

🎨 Generate Synthetic Data

Create training data from text files:

kiri-ocr generate \
    --train-file data/textlines.txt \
    --output data \
    --fonts-dir fonts \
    --augment 2 \
    --random-augment \
    --height 32 \
    --width 512

Arguments:

Argument	Description
--train-file	Source text file (one line per sample)
--fonts-dir	Directory with .ttf font files
--augment	Augmentation factor per line
--random-augment	Apply random noise/rotation
--height	Image height (32 for CRNN, 48 for Transformer)

---

🎯 Train Text Detector (Optional)

Kiri OCR uses CRAFT for text detection. Train a custom detector:

1. Generate Detector Dataset

kiri-ocr generate-detector \
    --text-file data/textlines.txt \
    --fonts-dir fonts \
    --output detector_dataset \
    --num-train 1000 \
    --num-val 200

2. Train Detector

kiri-ocr train-detector \
    --epochs 50 \
    --batch-size 8 \
    --name my_craft_detector

3. Use Custom Detector

from kiri_ocr import OCR

ocr = OCR(
    det_model_path="runs/detect/my_craft_detector/weights/best.pth",
    det_method="craft"
)

---

⚙️ Configuration File

Use a YAML config file for complex setups:

# Generate default config
kiri-ocr init-config -o config.yaml

# Train with config
kiri-ocr train --config config.yaml

Example config.yaml:

# Image dimensions
height: 48
width: 640

# Training
batch_size: 32
epochs: 100
lr: 0.0003
weight_decay: 0.01

# Loss weights
ctc_weight: 0.5
dec_weight: 0.5

# Sequence length limit (prevents OOM with long texts)
max_seq_len: 512

# Paths
output_dir: output
save_steps: 5000

# Device
device: cuda

# Dataset (HuggingFace)
hf_dataset: mrrtmob/khmer_english_ocr_image_line
hf_train_split: train
hf_image_col: image
hf_text_col: text

# Resume training
resume: false

---

🔍 HuggingFace Dataset Options

Argument	Default	Description
--hf-dataset	-	Dataset ID (e.g.,username/dataset)
--hf-train-split	train	Training split name
--hf-val-split	-	Validation split (auto-detected if not set)
--hf-val-percent	0.1	Val split from train if no val split exists
--hf-image-col	image	Column name for images
--hf-text-col	text	Column name for text labels
--hf-subset	-	Dataset subset/config name
--hf-streaming	False	Stream instead of download

---

📊 Expected Training Progress

Epoch   1/100 | Loss: 4.50 (CTC: 5.0, Dec: 4.0) | Val Acc:  2%
Epoch  10/100 | Loss: 2.10 (CTC: 2.3, Dec: 1.9) | Val Acc: 25%
Epoch  25/100 | Loss: 1.20 (CTC: 1.3, Dec: 1.1) | Val Acc: 55%
Epoch  50/100 | Loss: 0.60 (CTC: 0.7, Dec: 0.5) | Val Acc: 78%
Epoch 100/100 | Loss: 0.25 (CTC: 0.3, Dec: 0.2) | Val Acc: 92%

---

🐛 Troubleshooting

Model outputs garbage/random characters

Cause: Model not trained enough (need 50-100 epochs minimum)

# Check your model metadata
python -c "
import json
with open('model_meta.json') as f:
    meta = json.load(f)
print(f\"Epoch: {meta.get('epoch', 'unknown')}\")
print(f\"Step: {meta.get('step', 'unknown')}\")
"

# Or for legacy .pt format
python -c "
import torch
ckpt = torch.load('model.pt', map_location='cpu')
print(f\"Epoch: {ckpt.get('epoch', 'unknown')}\")
print(f\"Step: {ckpt.get('step', 'unknown')}\")
"

Vocab file not found

Cause: vocab.json must be in the same directory as the model

# Check files
ls output/
# Should show: vocab.json, model.safetensors, model_meta.json, etc.

CUDA out of memory

Cause 1: Batch size too large for GPU memory

# Fix: Reduce batch size
kiri-ocr train --batch-size 16 ...

Cause 2: Dataset contains very long text sequences (100k+ characters)

# Fix: Limit maximum sequence length (default: 512)
kiri-ocr train --max-seq-len 256 ...

# For more VRAM, you can increase it
kiri-ocr train --max-seq-len 1024 ...

The --max-seq-len parameter truncates sequences that exceed the limit, preventing the decoder's causal attention mask from consuming excessive memory.

Low confidence scores

Cause: Use CTC decoding for inference (more reliable)

# In OCR initialization
ocr = OCR(model_path="model.pt", use_beam_search=False)

---

📁 Project Structure

kiri_ocr/
├── __init__.py           # Main exports
├── core.py               # OCR class
├── model.py              # Transformer model
├── training.py           # Training code
├── renderer.py           # Document rendering
├── generator.py          # Synthetic data generation
├── cli.py                # Command-line interface
└── detector/             # Text detection
    ├── base.py
    ├── db/               # DB detector
    └── craft/            # CRAFT detector

---

☕ Support

If you find this project useful:

• ⭐ Star this repository
• Buy Me a Coffee
• ABA Payway

---

⚖️ License

Apache License 2.0

---

📚 Citation

@software{kiri_ocr,
  author = {mrrtmob},
  title = {Kiri OCR: Lightweight Khmer and English OCR},
  year = {2026},
  url = {https://github.com/mrrtmob/kiri-ocr}
}