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Did you know there is an app that allows you to turn a photo into a concept map automatically? It's called Algor Education, it's a web app for creating diagrams and maps online and it's very easy to use: with the "Photo to Map" function, all you have to do is take a photo of the pages of your book or your notes to get a concept map summarising the source text, fully customisable online.
But how does the Photo Map work? Algor Education extracts the text in a photograph using OCR (Optical Character Recognition) and through its Artificial Intelligence algorithms synthesises the source text in the form of a concept map, a graphic scheme made up of nodes containing keywords and logical-hierarchical relations.
In a previous article we have already seen how to create concept maps automatically from a text with copy and paste or by selecting it from a Pdf file with the 'Map from Text'. If you do not have a text in digital format (Pdf or open documents) but only books or paper notes, this guide is for you. Let's see how to create a concept map directly from photos of a text in 5 easy steps.
The first step to creating concept maps automatically from the text in your photos is to log in with your personal account from your PC or tablet. If you do not yet have an account, visit www.algoreducation.com and then click on Sign in or go directly to app.algoreducation.com and sign up for free. If you have a Google account, registration will be even faster.
Registering with Algor gives you direct access to the Free Plan, which gives you 30 AI credits that you can use to try out all the automatic features of the app at no cost.
Once logged in, you will find yourself in your Personal Area, where you can quickly access the main functions of the App and easily manage all your material or maps shared by other users.
In the central strip you will find buttons for accessing the different functions of Algor Education. To create a concept map automatically from a photo of a book page or from your notes, click on the "+ Map from Photo" button.
After clicking on '+ Map from Photos', you will need to choose one or more images that contain the text you want to turn into a map automatically. You will see a screen with several options for choosing these images. You can either use photos already on the device you are using Algor on, or take photos directly from another device, such as your mobile phone or tablet. Let's see how to do this in both cases.
To create a Map from Photos using photos already on your device, click on "upload photos from your device" and choose the images that contain the text you want to turn into a map. These could, for example, be screenshots of a digital book or a scanned document. You will be asked to order them correctly so that the order of the text that will be extracted to create the map is correct.
When you are done click ‘Proceed’ to see your map.
To create a Map from Photos by taking photos directly or using images in the gallery of another device, e.g. your smartphone, simply frame the QR code, click on the link that appears and follow the instructions.
How to frame the QR? If you have an Android device, we recommend using the built-in Google Lens app, but if you have an iPad or iPhone, just use your camera. Once you have framed the QR, click on the link that appears. You can either directly take pictures of the book or notes you are interested in, or choose pictures that are already in your smartphone gallery (in which case you will have to take them first) - the choice is yours!
Take or select your photos, reorder them as you like and click 'Proceed' to get your automatic photo map directly on your PC!
Please note: the better the quality of the photo, the better the result of your concept map. Here are some tips to help our algorithms give you a better map from your photos:
- Frame only the page or text that interests you, avoid framing e.g. exercises at the end of the page or side notes that do not interest you.
- Take only one photo per page, avoid framing more than one page at a time, the result may suffer.
- Avoid folds in the pages, the paper must be laid out well for the app to recognise the characters well.
- Avoid blurry or low light photos, the algorithm is clever but cannot work magic!
Remember: the automatic map currently has a limit of 15,000 characters, so you cannot upload more than a certain number of photos. If the entered text exceeds the limit and is truncated, we will notify you.
Now that you have taken your photos or selected images already on your device, Algor Education is ready to detect text from your photos that it will use to create your concept map automatically. The text will be analysed and synthesised by our algorithms that will provide you with a title and the various main concepts in the form of words and sentences linked in a logical-hierarchical manner.
The concept map will appear directly on the PC or tablet from which you have framed the QR code, you can view it or rework it in a personal way in the Algor Education editor, let's see which tools.
You can now take advantage of all the features of the Algor Education editor to customise your concept map, even in real time with other users. You can change the font, style and colours of the text, easily change the layout of the map (concept map or mind map), move individual nodes or entire branches, insert other nodes with text, images, video, audio, links to web pages to make the map more interactive.
Customise the style, colours and content of your map with images, videos, external links. And if you want to add information from documents or digital books, Algor Education allows you to upload Pdf or Word files and have them communicate directly with the editor. You can even listen to them with highlighted text-to-speech.
Once you have finished editing, you can print your map with different layouts to have the paper version with you at all times.
Want to try out an automatic photo map now? It's that easy! With the Algor Education Free Plan you get 30 AI credits to try out this brand new feature for free. Each Photo Map costs 15 AI credits, so with the free account you will be able to create 2 for free.
To use all of Algor Education's paid features (printing, text-to-speech, etc.) and have more AI credits available each month to create concept maps automatically from your texts, you can subscribe to the Algor Education Basic or Pro Plan.
The Basic Plan gives you 150 AI credits per month, the Pro Plan 700 AI credits per month. For more information visit the pricing page and then start your Free Trial.
