How to Add Text to Images and Create Videos using Express.js

Photo by Wahid Khene on Unsplash

Express.js is a server-side framework for building web applications with Node.js. While it is possible to use Express.js to manipulate images and create videos, it is not the most suitable tool for the task. Instead, you might consider using a library or tool specifically designed for image and video manipulation, such as ImageMagick or FFMPEG.

That being said, if you want to use Express.js to add text to images and create a video, you can use the following steps as a starting point:

1. Install the necessary libraries: You will need to install the following packages:

• Express.js
• Multer (for handling file uploads)
• Canvas (for image manipulation)

You can install these packages using npm:

npm install express multer canvas

2. Create an Express.js application: You can create a basic Express.js application using the following code:

const express = require('express');
const app = express();

app.listen(3000, () => {
  console.log('Server started on port 3000');
});

This code creates an Express.js application and listens on port 3000.

3. Add a route for handling file uploads: You can use the Multer package to handle file uploads. You can create a route that accepts a file upload using the following code:

const multer = require('multer');
const upload = multer({ dest: 'uploads/' });

app.post('/upload', upload.single('image'), (req, res) => {
  res.send('File uploaded');
});

This code creates a route that accepts a file upload with the name image and saves it to the uploads/ directory.

4.Add code to manipulate the image: You can use the Canvas package to manipulate the image. For example, you can add text to the image using the following code:

const { createCanvas, loadImage } = require('canvas');

const canvas = createCanvas(300, 300);
const ctx = canvas.getContext('2d');

loadImage('path/to/image.jpg').then((image) => {
  ctx.drawImage(image, 0, 0);
  ctx.font = '30px Arial';
  ctx.fillText('Hello World', 50, 50);

  const buffer = canvas.toBuffer('image/jpeg');
  // Do something with the buffer (e.g. save it to a file or send it as a response)
});

This code loads an image, adds text to it using the Canvas package, and saves it as a JPEG buffer.

1. Create a video from the images: You can use the FFMPEG package to create a video from the images. For example, you can use the following code to create a video from a series of images:

const { spawn } = require('child_process');

const images = ['path/to/image1.jpg', 'path/to/image2.jpg', 'path/to/image3.jpg'];
const videoPath = 'path/to/video.mp4';

const ffmpeg = spawn('ffmpeg', ['-y', '-i', 'image%d.jpg', '-r', '30', '-pix_fmt', 'yuv420p', videoPath]);

ffmpeg.on('exit', () => {
  console.log('Video created');
});

images.forEach((image) => {
  const args = ['-i', image];
  ffmpeg.stdin.write(args.join(' ') + '\n');
});

ffmpeg.stdin.end();

This code creates a video from a series of images and saves it as an MP4 file.

Note that this is just an example and you will need to modify the code to suit your specific requirements. Additionally, there are many other libraries and tools available for image and video manipulation, so you might want to explore other options as well.