Image recognition — 2 operations (recognizePlate, vinOcr) that read a license plate or a VIN out of a supplied image URL or base64 payload, returning detected text, confidence scores and bounding boxes for mobile capture and inspection workflows.
Each operation below carries the questions people ask an LLM about it and the instructions they give an agent to run it. Generated by API Evangelist overlay
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openapi: 3.2.0
info:
title: CarsXE Recognition API
description: CarsXE is a B2B vehicle data API by PiWaves, LLC.
version: 1.0.0
contact:
name: CarsXE
url: https://api.carsxe.com
servers:
- url: https://api.carsxe.com
security:
- ApiKeyQuery: []
tags:
- name: Recognition
description: Plate and VIN recognition from images
paths:
/platerecognition:
post:
operationId: recognizePlate
security:
- ApiKeyQuery: []
- X402Payment: []
- {}
tags:
- Recognition
summary: Plate Image Recognition
description: Extract a license plate number from an image of a vehicle. Send a JSON body containing an `image_url` field with a URL to the image.
requestBody:
required: true
content:
application/json:
schema:
type: object
required:
- image_url
properties:
image_url:
type: string
description: URL to an image of a vehicle's license plate.
example:
image_url: https://example.com/car-photo.jpg
responses:
'200':
description: Plate recognized.
content:
application/json:
schema:
type: object
properties:
success:
type: boolean
message:
type: string
results:
type: array
items:
type: object
properties:
plate:
type: string
box:
type: object
additionalProperties: true
region:
type: object
additionalProperties: true
additionalProperties: true
processing_time:
type: number
additionalProperties: true
example:
success: true
message: ''
results:
- box:
xmin: 2045
ymin: 1400
xmax: 2732
plate: 9djc652
region:
code: us-ca
score: 0.849
processing_time: 117.822
'400':
description: Missing image URL in the request body.
content:
application/json:
schema:
$ref: '#/components/schemas/Error'
example:
success: false
message: Missing upload URL
'401':
$ref: '#/components/responses/Unauthorized'
'404':
description: No plate could be recognized in the image.
content:
application/json:
schema:
$ref: '#/components/schemas/Error'
example:
success: false
message: No plates detected in image
'429':
$ref: '#/components/responses/UsageLimitExceeded'
'500':
description: Plate recognition service error.
content:
application/json:
schema:
$ref: '#/components/schemas/Error'
example:
success: false
message: Could not get information at this time
/v1/vinocr:
post:
operationId: vinOcr
security:
- ApiKeyQuery: []
- X402Payment: []
- {}
tags:
- Recognition
summary: VIN OCR
description: Extract a VIN from a photo. Send a JSON body containing an `image_url` field with either a URL to an image or a base64-encoded image string.
requestBody:
required: true
content:
application/json:
schema:
type: object
required:
- image_url
properties:
image_url:
type: string
description: URL to an image, or the base64 string of the image.
example:
image_url: https://example.com/vin-plate.jpg
responses:
'200':
description: VIN extracted from the image.
content:
application/json:
schema:
type: object
properties:
success:
type: boolean
vin:
type: string
box:
type: object
additionalProperties: true
confidence:
type: number
candidates:
type: array
items:
type: object
additionalProperties: true
additionalProperties: true
example:
success: true
vin: JHLRD77874C026456
box:
xmin: 257
xmax: 1673
ymin: 635
ymax: 793
confidence: 0.9834251403808594
candidates:
- vin: JHLRD77874C026456
confidence: 0.9834251403808594
'400':
description: Missing API key, missing image, invalid image data, image processing failure, or no text detected.
content:
application/json:
schema:
$ref: '#/components/schemas/Error'
examples:
missingKey:
value:
success: false
message: Missing API key
missingImage:
value:
success: false
message: Missing image data
invalidImage:
value:
success: false
message: Invalid image data format. Must be a valid URL or base64 encoded string.
noText:
value:
success: false
message: No text detected in the image
'401':
description: User with this API key is not active.
content:
application/json:
schema:
$ref: '#/components/schemas/Error'
example:
success: false
message: User with this API key is not active. To activate update your billing on https://carsxe.com/dashboard/billing
'404':
description: API key not found, or no valid VIN found in the image.
content:
application/json:
schema:
$ref: '#/components/schemas/Error'
examples:
userNotFound:
value:
success: false
message: User with this API key was not found or the API key is disabled
noVin:
value:
success: false
message: No valid VIN candidates found in the image
'429':
$ref: '#/components/responses/UsageLimitExceeded'
components:
schemas:
Error:
type: object
properties:
success:
type: boolean
const: false
message:
type: string
required:
- success
- message
additionalProperties: true
UsageLimitError:
allOf:
- $ref: '#/components/schemas/Error'
- type: object
properties:
usage:
type: object
properties:
current:
type: number
description: Current usage in the billing period.
limit:
type: number
description: Included quota for the billing period.
remaining:
type: number
description: Remaining included quota.
responses:
UsageLimitExceeded:
description: API usage limit exceeded for the current billing period.
content:
application/json:
schema:
$ref: '#/components/schemas/UsageLimitError'
example:
success: false
message: API usage limit exceeded
usage:
current: 1000
limit: 1000
remaining: 0
Unauthorized:
description: Missing API key, unknown/disabled API key, or inactive account.
content:
application/json:
schema:
$ref: '#/components/schemas/Error'
examples:
missingKey:
value:
success: false
message: Missing API key
userNotFound:
value:
success: false
message: User with this API key was not found or the API key is disabled
userNotActive:
value:
success: false
message: User with this API key is not active. To activate update your billing on https://carsxe.com/dashboard/billing
securitySchemes:
ApiKeyQuery:
type: apiKey
in: query
name: key
description: Your CarsXE API key, passed as the `key` query parameter.
X402Payment:
type: apiKey
in: header
name: PAYMENT-SIGNATURE
description: x402 payment proof for supported operations. Start without a CarsXE key to receive HTTP 402 payment requirements, then retry the identical request with the payment header produced by your x402 client. CarsXE also accepts the legacy X-PAYMENT header.
RecallsBatchToken:
type: apiKey
in: header
name: X-CarsXE-Batch-Token
description: Batch-scoped token returned by an x402 Recalls Batch submission.