Custom Vision, Xamarin.Forms and Simpsons – The Community AI Show

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This week I had the honor of being the first guest on the Community AI Show with Henk Boelman, Cloud Advocate at Microsoft. In this first episode we look at how we can use Azure Custom Vision in a Xamarin.Forms app.

Custom Vision Simpsons Recognition

Our demo app can recognize Simpson themed LEGO figures. The model is trained through Azure Custom Vision. From there, you can either communicate with the available REST APIs, or export the model to CoreML, TensorFlow or ONNX.

These models can then be loaded into iOS, Android or UWP respectively. Because these models reside on your device locally, you do not need an internet connection and the results return super fast!

Watch Henk and me have some fun while building this solution in the video below. You will learn how to train your model, the global structure of a Xamarin.Forms app and what routes you can take to use this platform-specific feature in a Forms app.

Spoiler alert: use this amazing plugin by Jim Bennett to make your life a lot easier.

Custom Vision, Xamarin and Simpsons - The Community AI Show

All the source code for this app can be found on my GitHub page. If you want to get started with Custom Vision yourself, go and check out customvision.ai.

More Resources

If you can’t get enough of all the AI goodness, I have also recorded a video course on the Azure Cognitive Services and how to use those. You can find that here.

On my YouTube channel you can also find a session where I incorporate the Cognitive Services in a Xamarin.Forms app. While you are there, don’t forget to like and subscribe!

In Closing

Please let me know what you think of my appearance in the AI show or all the other resources mentioned in this post. If you need any clarification on anything mentioned in this post, I’m planning to write some more extensive posts about using the CoreML and TensorFlow models in your Xamarin app. Reach out if there are specific things you want to read in there.

Experimental Flags in Xamarin.Forms

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The other day someone approached me with a problem using the experimental flags. This question triggered me to write a quick post on the why of these flags and how to use them. I have already written some posts about the CarouselView and two about SwipeView. At the time of writing, these controls are behind … Read more Experimental Flags in Xamarin.Forms

Using the Xamarin.Forms Nightly Feed

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Whether you want to check out the latest and greatest features, or see if that bug you reported got fixed. There are a number of good reasons to check out the Xamarin.Forms Nightly Feed. In this post you will learn what the nightly feed is exactly and how you can use it yourself. What is … Read more Using the Xamarin.Forms Nightly Feed

Git Rebase: Don’t be Afraid of the Force (Push)

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While contributing to a big OSS project it’s quite useful to know how to do a Git rebase. And more importantly: don’t be afraid of the Git force push. In this post I will write a little about the why and the how. The Backstory Finally, your change is ready for the world to see. … Read more Git Rebase: Don’t be Afraid of the Force (Push)

SwipeView Interaction with Xamarin.Forms

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On the Xamarin.Forms repository an issue was opened that requested an example on how to use SwipeView in CollectionView. Of course, I’m happy to explain. But I would hate to have that knowledge limited to just that issue. That’s why I’m writing this post about it so you can learn from it too! The SwipeView … Read more SwipeView Interaction with Xamarin.Forms

SwipeView: Swipe All the Things in Xamarin.Forms 4.4

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In the 4.4 release of Xamarin.Forms a couple of experimental controls were added. One of which is SwipeView. With SwipeView you are able to make controls swipe-able and put context actions underneath them. In this post, I will show you how easy it is to implement and use SwipeView in your own project. Earlier I … Read more SwipeView: Swipe All the Things in Xamarin.Forms 4.4

CarouselView for Xamarin.Forms: Scrolling into the new 4.4 version

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With the release of Xamarin.Forms 4.4 a new control was introduced; CarouselView. In this post you will learn what it’s about and how to use it. This control makes it super simple to add a scrolling view, the one you are used to from the web, to your native app. In minutes! What is CarouselView? … Read more CarouselView for Xamarin.Forms: Scrolling into the new 4.4 version

GIF Support now available in Xamarin.Forms

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With the new pre-release version of Xamarin.Forms that just came out, you can now use animated GIF images! Of course it is super obvious what you can do with that, in this post I will show you how! The support for animated GIF has been a long time coming, but recently the PR was cleaned … Read more GIF Support now available in Xamarin.Forms

SourceLink Support for Xamarin.Forms

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SourceLink Support for Xamarin.Forms hero image

If you’ve heard of SourceLink already you know what is coming and how this will boost your productivity. If you haven’t heard of it yet, no worries! In this post I will tell you what it is and how to get started with it for Xamarin.Forms. Since the Forms 4.3-pre1 package is out now, you … Read more SourceLink Support for Xamarin.Forms

Contributing to Xamarin.Forms: My Story

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Contributing to Xamarin.Forms: My Story hero image

In this series of posts I will go over the basics of contributing to Xamarin.Forms. I have 4 posts planned initially: my story, before you open a pull request (PR), opening a PR and after you opened a PR. In this first post I will tell you a little bit about my background. By sharing … Read more Contributing to Xamarin.Forms: My Story