Turn Your Photos into Anime with Baidu AI: A Step‑by‑Step Python Guide

Effect Demonstration

Original photo and the generated anime style image, as well as the version with a mask, are shown below.

Principle Analysis

The Baidu AI Open Platform provides a “Portrait Anime” service. Users upload an image, the service receives a POST request containing the image encoded in Base64 and an access_token, and returns a JSON dictionary with the processed image.

API documentation can be found at http://suo.im/64FNZ9.

Access Token Retrieval

To call the API you must first obtain an access_token via Baidu’s OAuth 2.0 endpoint:

https://aip.baidubce.com/oauth/2.0/token?grant_type=client_credentials&client_id=YOUR_API_KEY&client_secret=YOUR_SECRET_KEY

The response is a JSON dictionary containing the token.

Finding API Key and Secret Key

Log in to Baidu Cloud ( https://login.bce.baidu.com/), create an application, and the dashboard displays the API Key and Secret Key. Free usage is limited to about 500 calls for the portrait‑anime interface.

Code Demonstration

1. Simple portrait anime

import requests, base64

def get_access_token():
    url = 'https://aip.baidubce.com/oauth/2.0/token'
    data = {
        'grant_type': 'client_credentials',
        'client_id': 'YOUR_API_KEY',
        'client_secret': 'YOUR_SECRET_KEY'
    }
    res = requests.post(url, data=data).json()
    return res['access_token']

request_url = "https://aip.baidubce.com/rest/2.0/image-process/v1/selfie_anime"
with open('zhao.jpg','rb') as f:
    img = base64.b64encode(f.read())
params = {"image": img}
access_token = get_access_token()
response = requests.post(request_url + "?access_token=" + access_token,
                         data=params,
                         headers={'content-type':'application/x-www-form-urlencoded'})
result = response.json()
if result:
    with open('anime.jpg','wb') as f:
        f.write(base64.b64decode(result['image']))

2. Portrait anime with mask

import requests, base64

def get_access_token():
    # same as above
    ...

request_url = "https://aip.baidubce.com/rest/2.0/image-process/v1/selfie_anime"
with open('zhao.jpg','rb') as f:
    img = base64.b64encode(f.read())
params = {
    "image": img,
    "type": "anime_mask",
    "mask_id": "2"
}
access_token = get_access_token()
response = requests.post(request_url + "?access_token=" + access_token,
                         data=params,
                         headers={'content-type':'application/x-www-form-urlencoded'})
result = response.json()
if result:
    with open('anime_mask.jpg','wb') as f:
        f.write(base64.b64decode(result['image']))