How can I transfer an image obtained from the Google Places Photo API to my frontend?

Frontend and Backend Development
1

I successfully retrieve an image from the Google Places Photo API when I paste the following URL in the browser:

https://maps.googleapis.com/maps/api/place/photo?
maxwidth=400&photoreference=examplereference&key=examplekey

Note that I shortened the photoreference and removed the secret key for security reasons. However, after obtaining the image using PHP, I’m struggling to deliver a usable response to my frontend. Here’s my current code:

$imageData = file_get_contents("https://maps.googleapis.com/maps/api/place/photo?maxwidth=400&photoreference=examplereference&key=examplekey");
$imageObject = json_decode($imageData);
return response()->json([
    'message' => 'Image retrieved successfully!',
    'image' => $imageObject
], 201);

When I attempt to send $imageObject to the frontend, it returns NULL, and trying to send $imageData results in an error: “Malformed UTF-8 characters, possibly incorrectly encoded.” Despite reviewing the documentation, I still don’t understand what I should expect from this API call.

2

You can use PHP’s Stream filter functions to handle this problem effectively. Instead of trying to decode it as JSON, you should recognize that the API response is binary image data. You can directly pass this image data to the frontend without modification, by sending an appropriate header in your response. For example:

header('Content-Type: image/jpeg');
echo $imageData;

This way, your frontend will receive the image correctly and can handle it as required, displaying it in an <img> tag or utilizing it in other ways.

3

have you tried using a blob on the frontend to handle the image data? turning the response into a blob can make it easier to display. mayb there’s a particular structure that can help process the data without any additional encoding steps? curious to know ur thoughts!

4

If the issue is still there, consider using cURL to fetch the image data. Sometimes, file_get_contents may not handle all situations correctly, especially with large files or slow networks. Using cURL allows you to better control the request and handle errors more robustly.

5

hey! looks like ur trying to handle the image like json, but it’s raw image data. try base64_encode on $imageData first. then in ur json response, send that base64 string to the frontend n it should work fine when u put it as a src in an img tag :smile:. gd luck!

6

It’s essential to ensure that you are handling image data rather than trying to parse it as JSON, as others have noted. If you wish to pass the image data within the JSON response to the frontend, convert the binary data to a base64 string on the server side. On the frontend, you can then reconstruct the image by setting the src of an \ tag to ‘data:image/jpeg;base64,’ followed by the base64 encoded string. This method ensures that the image is correctly interpreted and displayed without encoding errors.