Face recognition Library

Update

OpenCV 2.4.2 now comes with the very new cv::FaceRecognizer. Please see the very detailed documentation at:

• http://docs.opencv.org/2.4/modules/contrib/doc/facerec/index.html

Original Post

I have released libfacerec, a modern face recognition library for the OpenCV C++ API (BSD license). libfacerec has no additional dependencies and implements the Eigenfaces method, Fisherfaces method and Local Binary Patterns Histograms. Parts of the library are going to be included in OpenCV 2.4.

The latest revision of the libfacerec is available at:

• https://github.com/bytefish/libfacerec

The library was written for OpenCV 2.3.1 with the upcoming OpenCV 2.4 in mind, so I don't support OpenCV versions earlier than 2.3.1. This project comes as a CMake project with a well-documented API, there's also a tutorial on gender classification. You can see a HTML version of the documentation at:

• http://www.bytefish.de/dev/libfacerec/

If you want to understand how those algorithms work, you might want to read my Guide To Face Recognition (includes Python and GNU Octave/MATLAB examples):

• http://www.bytefish.de/blog/face_recognition_with_opencv2

There's also a Python and GNU Octave/MATLAB implementation of the algorithms in my github repository. Both projects in facerec also include several cross validation methods for evaluating algorithms:

• https://github.com/bytefish/facerec

The relevant publications are:

• Turk, M., and Pentland, A. Eigenfaces for recognition.. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience 3 (1991), 71–86.
• Belhumeur, P. N., Hespanha, J., and Kriegman, D. Eigenfaces vs. Fisherfaces: Recognition using class specific linear projection.. IEEE Transactions on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence 19, 7 (1997), 711–720.
• Ahonen, T., Hadid, A., and Pietikainen, M. Face Recognition with Local Binary Patterns.. Computer Vision - ECCV 2004 (2004), 469–481.

pam-face-authentication a PAM Module for Face Authentication: but it would require some work to get what you want. A quick test showed, that the recognition rate are not as good as those of VeriLook from NeuroTechnology.

Malic is another open source face recognition software, which uses Gabor Wavelet descriptors. But the last update to the source is 3 years old.

From the website: "Malic is an opensource face recognition software which uses gabor wavelet. It is realtime face recognition system that based on Malib and CSU Face Identification Evaluation System (csuFaceIdEval).Uses Malib library for realtime image processing and some of csuFaceIdEval for face recognition."

Further this could be of interest:

gaborboosting: A scientific program applied on Face Recognition with Gabor Wavelet and AdaBoost Algorithm

Feature Extraction Library - FELib refers to "Face Annotation by Transductive Kernel Fisher Discriminant,"

Here is a list of commercial vendors that provide off-the-shelf packages for facial recognition which run on Windows:

1. Cybula - Information on their Facial Recognition SDK. This is a company founded by a University Professor and as such their website looks unprofessional. There's no pricing information or demo that you can download. You'll need to contact them for pricing information.

2. NeuroTechnology - Information on their Facial Recognition SDK. This company has both up-front pricing information as well as an actual 30 day trial of their SDK.

3. Pittsburgh Pattern Recognition - (Acquired by Google) Information on their Facial Tracking and Recognition SDK. The demos that they provide help you evaluate their technology but not their SDSK. You'll need to contact them for pricing information.

4. Sensible Vision - Information on their SDK. Their site allows you to easily get a price quote and you can also order an evaluation kit that will help you evaluate their technology.