How to post an image in base64 encoding via .ajax?

This is some working code from my own application. You will need to change the contentType and data args in your ajax operations.

    var video = that.vars.video;
    var code = document.createElement("canvas");

    code.getContext('2d').drawImage(video, 0, 0, code.width, code.height);

    var img = document.createElement("img");
    img.src = code.toDataURL();    

    $.ajax({
        url: '/scan/submit',
        type: 'POST',
        data: { data: code.toDataURL(), userid: userid },
        success: function (data) {
            if (data.error) {
                alert(data.error);
                return;
            }
            // do something here.
        }, 
        error : function (r, s, e) {
                alert("Unexpected error:" + e);
                console.log(r);
                console.log(s);
                console.log(e);
            } 
        });

Thanks for all the answers which helped me along.

I had also posted the question to the forums on https://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/807ee18d-45e5-410b-a339-c8dcb3bfa25b/testing-project-oxford-ocr-how-to-use-a-local-file-in-base64-for-example?forum=mlapi (more Project Oxford specific) and between their answers and your's I've got a solution.

1. You need to send a Blob
2. You need to set the processData:false and contentType: 'application/octet-stream' options in the .ajax call

So my solution looks like this

First a function to make the blob (This is copied verbatim from someone more gifted than I)

makeblob = function (dataURL) {
            var BASE64_MARKER = ';base64,';
            if (dataURL.indexOf(BASE64_MARKER) == -1) {
                var parts = dataURL.split(',');
                var contentType = parts[0].split(':')[1];
                var raw = decodeURIComponent(parts[1]);
                return new Blob([raw], { type: contentType });
            }
            var parts = dataURL.split(BASE64_MARKER);
            var contentType = parts[0].split(':')[1];
            var raw = window.atob(parts[1]);
            var rawLength = raw.length;

            var uInt8Array = new Uint8Array(rawLength);

            for (var i = 0; i < rawLength; ++i) {
                uInt8Array[i] = raw.charCodeAt(i);
            }

            return new Blob([uInt8Array], { type: contentType });
        }

and then

$.ajax({
    url: 'https://api.projectoxford.ai/vision/v1/ocr?' + $.param(params),
    type: 'POST',
    processData: false,
    contentType: 'application/octet-stream',
    data: makeblob('data:image/jpeg;base64,9j/4AAQSkZJRgA..........gAooooAKKKKACiiigD//Z'
 })
.done(function(data) {alert("success");})
.fail(function() {alert("error");});