I'll go a bit more into detail explaining :ocv:class:`FaceRecognizer`, because it doesn't look like a powerful interface at first sight. But: Every :ocv:class:`FaceRecognizer` is an :ocv:class:`Algorithm`, so you can easily get/set all model internals (if allowed by the implementation). :ocv:class:`Algorithm` is a relatively new OpenCV concept, which is available since the 2.4 release. I suggest you take a look at its description.
* So called “virtual constructor”. That is, each Algorithm derivative is registered at program start and you can get the list of registered algorithms and create instance of a particular algorithm by its name (see :ocv:func:`Algorithm::create`). If you plan to add your own algorithms, it is good practice to add a unique prefix to your algorithms to distinguish them from other algorithms.
* Setting/Retrieving algorithm parameters by name. If you used video capturing functionality from OpenCV highgui module, you are probably familar with :ocv:cfunc:`cvSetCaptureProperty`, :ocv:cfunc:`cvGetCaptureProperty`, :ocv:func:`VideoCapture::set` and :ocv:func:`VideoCapture::get`. :ocv:class:`Algorithm` provides similar method where instead of integer id's you specify the parameter names as text strings. See :ocv:func:`Algorithm::set` and :ocv:func:`Algorithm::get` for details.
* Reading and writing parameters from/to XML or YAML files. Every Algorithm derivative can store all its parameters and then read them back. There is no need to re-implement it each time.
Sometimes you run into the situation, when you want to apply a threshold on the prediction. A common scenario in face recognition is to tell, wether a face belongs to the training dataset or if it is unknown. You might wonder, why there's no public API in :ocv:class:`FaceRecognizer` to set the threshold for the prediction, but rest assured: It's supported. It just means there's no generic way in an abstract class to provide an interface for setting/getting the thresholds of *every possible*:ocv:class:`FaceRecognizer` algorithm. The appropriate place to set the thresholds is in the constructor of the specific :ocv:class:`FaceRecognizer` and since every :ocv:class:`FaceRecognizer` is a :ocv:class:`Algorithm` (see above), you can get/set the thresholds at runtime!
Here is an example of setting a threshold for the Eigenfaces method, when creating the model:
// create the concrete implementation with the appropiate parameters:
Ptr<FaceRecognizer> model = createEigenFaceRecognizer(num_components, threshold);
Sometimes it's impossible to train the model, just to experiment with threshold values. Thanks to :ocv:class:`Algorithm` it's possible to set internal model thresholds during runtime. Let's see how we would set/get the prediction for the Eigenface model, we've created above:
..code-block:: cpp
// The following line reads the threshold from the Eigenfaces model:
Since every :ocv:class:`FaceRecognizer` is a :ocv:class:`Algorithm`, you can use :ocv:func:`Algorithm::name` to get the name of a :ocv:class:`FaceRecognizer`:
..code-block:: cpp
// Create a FaceRecognizer:
Ptr<FaceRecognizer> model = createEigenFaceRecognizer();
The following source code snippet shows you how to learn a Fisherfaces model on a given set of images. The images are read with :ocv:func:`imread` and pushed into a ``std::vector<Mat>``. The labels of each image are stored within a ``std::vector<int>`` (you could also use a :ocv:class:`Mat` of type `CV_32SC1`). Think of the label as the subject (the person) this image belongs to, so same subjects (persons) should have the same label. For the available :ocv:class:`FaceRecognizer` you don't have to pay any attention to the order of the labels, just make sure same persons have the same label:
Now that you have read some images, we can create a new :ocv:class:`FaceRecognizer`. In this example I'll create a Fisherfaces model and decide to keep all of the possible Fisherfaces:
..code-block:: cpp
// Create a new Fisherfaces model and retain all available Fisherfaces,
// this is the most common usage of this specific FaceRecognizer:
//
Ptr<FaceRecognizer> model = createFisherFaceRecognizer();
:param src:The training images, that means the faces you want to learn. The data has to be given as a ``vector<Mat>``.
:param labels:The labels corresponding to the images have to be given either as a ``vector<int>`` or a
This method updates a (probably trained) :ocv:class:`FaceRecognizer`, but only if the algorithm supports it. The Local Binary Patterns Histograms (LBPH) recognizer (see :ocv:func:`createLBPHFaceRecognizer`) can be updated. For the Eigenfaces and Fisherfaces method, this is algorithmically not possible and you have to re-estimate the model with :ocv:func:`FaceRecognizer::train`. In any case, a call to train empties the existing model and learns a new model, while update does not delete any model data.
..code-block:: cpp
// Create a new LBPH model (it can be updated) and use the default parameters,
// this is the most common usage of this specific FaceRecognizer:
//
Ptr<FaceRecognizer> model = createLBPHFaceRecognizer();
// This is the common interface to train all of the available cv::FaceRecognizer
// implementations:
//
model->train(images, labels);
// Some containers to hold new image:
vector<Mat> newImages;
vector<int> newLabels;
// You should add some images to the containers:
//
// ...
//
// Now updating the model is as easy as calling:
model->update(newImages,newLabels);
// This will preserve the old model data and extend the existing model
// with the new features extracted from newImages!
Calling update on an Eigenfaces model (see :ocv:func:`createEigenFaceRecognizer`), which doesn't support updating, will throw an error similar to:
..code-block:: none
OpenCV Error: The function/feature is not implemented (This FaceRecognizer (FaceRecognizer.Eigenfaces) does not support updating, you have to use FaceRecognizer::train to update it.) in update, file /home/philipp/git/opencv/modules/contrib/src/facerec.cpp, line 305
terminate called after throwing an instance of 'cv::Exception'
Please note: The :ocv:class:`FaceRecognizer` does not store your training images, because this would be very memory intense and it's not the responsibility of te :ocv:class:`FaceRecognizer` to do so. The caller is responsible for maintaining the dataset, he want to work with.
:param num_components:The number of components (read: Eigenfaces) kept for this Prinicpal Component Analysis. As a hint: There's no rule how many components (read: Eigenfaces) should be kept for good reconstruction capabilities. It is based on your input data, so experiment with the number. Keeping 80 components should almost always be sufficient.
* Training and prediction must be done on grayscale images, use :ocv:func:`cvtColor` to convert between the color spaces.
***THE EIGENFACES METHOD MAKES THE ASSUMPTION, THAT THE TRAINING AND TEST IMAGES ARE OF EQUAL SIZE.** (caps-lock, because I got so many mails asking for this). You have to make sure your input data has the correct shape, else a meaningful exception is thrown. Use :ocv:func:`resize` to resize the images.
:param num_components:The number of components (read: Fisherfaces) kept for this Linear Discriminant Analysis with the Fisherfaces criterion. It's useful to keep all components, that means the number of your classes ``c`` (read: subjects, persons you want to recognize). If you leave this at the default (``0``) or set it to a value less-equal ``0`` or greater ``(c-1)``, it will be set to the correct number ``(c-1)`` automatically.
:param threshold:The threshold applied in the prediction. If the distance to the nearest neighbor is larger than the threshold, this method returns -1.
* Training and prediction must be done on grayscale images, use :ocv:func:`cvtColor` to convert between the color spaces.
***THE FISHERFACES METHOD MAKES THE ASSUMPTION, THAT THE TRAINING AND TEST IMAGES ARE OF EQUAL SIZE.** (caps-lock, because I got so many mails asking for this). You have to make sure your input data has the correct shape, else a meaningful exception is thrown. Use :ocv:func:`resize` to resize the images.
:param radius:The radius used for building the Circular Local Binary Pattern. The greater the radius, the
:param neighbors:The number of sample points to build a Circular Local Binary Pattern from. An appropriate value is to use `` 8`` sample points. Keep in mind: the more sample points you include, the higher the computational cost.
:param grid_x:The number of cells in the horizontal direction, ``8`` is a common value used in publications. The more cells, the finer the grid, the higher the dimensionality of the resulting feature vector.
:param grid_y:The number of cells in the vertical direction, ``8`` is a common value used in publications. The more cells, the finer the grid, the higher the dimensionality of the resulting feature vector.
:param threshold:The threshold applied in the prediction. If the distance to the nearest neighbor is larger than the threshold, this method returns -1.
* The Circular Local Binary Patterns (used in training and prediction) expect the data given as grayscale images, use :ocv:func:`cvtColor` to convert between the color spaces.
