This Android application provides on-device, offline text and image translation, addressing the need for privacy-conscious and accessible translation without internet connectivity. It targets both end-users seeking reliable offline translation and developers looking to integrate translation capabilities into their own Android apps. The primary benefit is secure, continuous translation powered by robust open-source models.

How It Works

The app leverages a suite of specialized on-device models for its core functionality. Translation is powered by Firefox's bergamot-translator, while Optical Character Recognition (OCR) for images uses Tesseract. Automatic language detection is handled by cld2. Additional features include dictionaries sourced from Wiktionary/Kaikki, Japanese transliteration via Mecab, and Text-to-Speech (TTS) using engines like Piper and Coqui. All translation processing occurs locally, ensuring data privacy and offline availability after initial language pack downloads.

Quick Start & Requirements

• Build: bash build.sh (triggers Docker build).
• Prerequisites: Docker for building. Android OS for running. Specific QEMU flags (-cpu max) are required for x86-64 emulator execution due to AVX2 dependency.
• Manual Setup: Language files can be placed in Documents/dev.davidv.translator for offline use on devices without internet access.
• Links: OFFLINE_SETUP.md (details not provided).

Highlighted Details

• Full offline text and image translation capabilities.
• Automatic language detection and transliteration for non-Latin scripts.
• Integrated word dictionary and TTS support.
• Functionality to translate content from other apps via Digital Assistant or Accessibility Service.
• Exposes an internal API (ITranslationService.aidl) for inter-app communication.

Maintenance & Community

This project received funding from the NGI Mobifree Fund, established by NLnet. No specific community channels (e.g., Discord, Slack) or notable contributors are mentioned in the provided text.

Licensing & Compatibility

The license type is not explicitly stated in the provided README content. The application is designed for Android. Compatibility with x86-64 emulators requires specific QEMU configurations.

Limitations & Caveats

Voice integration for the Digital Assistant feature is currently unsupported. Android's system limitation restricts the app to functioning as the sole active Digital Assistant. Running on x86-64 emulators necessitates a non-standard QEMU CPU configuration to bypass AVX2 instruction set requirements. The project's license is not specified.