🔍 Language Lens: The Privacy-First Screen Translator
Language Lens is a desktop utility designed to break down language barriers instantly without compromising user privacy. Unlike traditional web translators that require copying, pasting, or uploading screenshots to the cloud, Language Lens works as a visual overlay, translating text directly where it sits on your screen—whether it's inside a video game, a comic book, a PDF, or a protected website.
Built with a completely offline architecture, Language Lens ensures that your personal data and screen content never leave your computer.
🌟 Key Capabilities
1. 🖥️ Visual Overlay Technology
Language Lens operates as a "transparent window" that floats above your other applications.
Drag & Translate: Simply drag the lens over any region of your screen.
Click-Through Mode: Once the translation starts, you can "lock" the lens, allowing you to click through the overlay to interact with the game or app underneath while still seeing the translation.
Dynamic Resizing: Resize the lens to capture a single sentence or a full dialogue box.
2. 🛡️ 100% Offline & Private
Most screen translators send your images to Google, Microsoft, or DeepL servers. Language Lens is different.
Local Processing: All Optical Character Recognition (OCR) and Translation happen on your computer's CPU.
Zero Data Leakage: You can use this tool safely with sensitive documents or private chats. It works perfectly even when your computer is disconnected from the internet (Air-Gapped).
3. 🧠 Smart Scanning Modes
Single Scan: Captures the text once for a quick translation. Perfect for menus or static documents.
Continual Mode: The lens watches the screen area and updates the translation automatically every few seconds.
Anti-Flicker Technology: The engine intelligently compares the current screen to the previous frame. If the text hasn't changed, it pauses processing to save CPU power and prevent the text from "blinking."
4. 🎨 Customization
Visual Control: Adjust the text size, font color, and background opacity to ensure the translation is readable against any background (dark or light).
Refresh Rate: Control how often the lens scans the screen (from 0.2s to 2.0s) to balance speed with computer performance.
🌍 Supported Languages
Language Lens currently supports 27 major global languages, powered by the OpenNMT neural network engine.
Asian Languages:
Chinese (Simplified)
Hindi
Indonesian
Japanese
Korean
Thai
Vietnamese
European & Middle Eastern Languages:
Arabic
Czech
Danish
Dutch
English
Finnish
French
German
Greek
Hebrew
Hungarian
Italian
Norwegian
Polish
Portuguese
Russian
Spanish
Swedish
Turkish
Ukrainian
⚙️ Technical Specifications
Engine: Python 3.12 + PyQt6
OCR (Text Recognition): EasyOCR (CPU-Optimized)
Translation Model: Argos Translate (OpenNMT)
Hardware Requirement: Runs efficiently on standard modern CPUs (Intel Core i5 / AMD Ryzen 5 or equivalent). No dedicated GPU required.
Internet Requirement: None (Internet is required only once during the very first launch to download the necessary language dictionaries).
📝 Developer Note
Language Lens is an independent "Basement Build" project developed by Dan Ellement. It was created to provide a neat free, open, and secure alternative to corporate translation tools.