Zebra Translate
C Quick Start

Platforms

• Linux (x86_64)
• macOS (x86_64, arm64)
• Windows (x86_64, arm64)
• Raspberry Pi (3, 4, 5)

Requirements

• C99-compatible compiler
• CMake (3.13+)
• For Windows Only: MinGW is required to build the demo

Picovoice Account & AccessKey

Signup or Login to Picovoice Console to get your AccessKey. Make sure to keep your AccessKey secret.

Quick Start

Setup

1. Clone the repository:

git clone --recurse-submodules https://github.com/Picovoice/zebra.git

Usage

1. Include the public header files (picovoice.h and pv_zebra.h).
2. Link the project to an appropriate precompiled library for the target platform and load it.
3. Select a model file. Read more about how to select a model in the Translation Models section.
4. Construct the Zebra Translate object:

static const char* ACCESS_KEY = "${ACCESS_KEY}";

const char *model_file_path = "${MODEL_FILE_PATH}";
const char *device = "best";

pv_zebra_t *zebra;

const pv_status_t status = pv_zebra_init(
    ACCESS_KEY
    model_file_path,
    device,
    &zebra);

if (status != PV_STATUS_SUCCESS) {
    // error handling logic
}

5. Pass in text to the pv_zebra_translate function:

char *text = "${TEXT_TO_TRANSLATE}";

char *translation = NULL;
status = pv_zebra_translate(zebra, text, &translation);
if (status != PV_STATUS_SUCCESS) {
  // error handling logic
}
pv_zebra_translation_delete(zebra, translation); // make sure to free translation result

6. Release resources explicitly when done with Zebra Translate:

pv_zebra_delete(zebra);

Translation Models

Supported Zebra translation models are located in our GitHub repository. The selected model decides the source and target translation languages.

The format of the model follows:

zebra_params_${SOURCE}_${TARGET}.pv

Where ${SOURCE} is the language code of the source language and ${TARGET} is the language code of the target language for the translation.

Demo

For the Zebra Translate C SDK, we offer a demo application that demonstrates how to use the Translate engine.

Setup

1. Clone the Zebra Translate repository from GitHub using HTTPS:

git clone --recurse-submodules https://github.com/Picovoice/zebra.git

2. Build the demo:

cd zebra
cmake -S demo/c/. -B demo/c/build
cmake --build demo/c/build --target zebra_demo

Usage

To see the usage options for the demo:

./demo/c/build/zebra_demo

Run the command corresponding to your platform from the root of the repository:

./demo/c/build/zebra_demo \
-a ${ACCESS_KEY} \
-m ${MODEL_FILE_PATH} \
-l lib/${PLATFORM}/${ARCH}/libpv_zebra.so \
-t ${TEXT_TO_TRANSLATE} ...

For more information on our Zebra Translate demos for C, head over to our GitHub repository.

Resources