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Version: 3.9.0

Face Identification

Face SDK includes several identification methods that differ in recgnition quality and time characteristics.
More time-consuming methods provide better recognition quality (see Identification Performance for detailed characteristics of the methods).
Depending on recognition quality and time all methods can be divided into 3 groups in connection with use cases:

  • 9.30 – for real-time video identification on mobile platforms (arm)
  • 6.7 – for real-time video identification on desktop platforms (x86)
  • 9.300, 9.1000 – for expert systems, in which a person is searched by a photo

Deprecated numbering system of methods used in Face SDK up to version 3.3

The first number (6.x/7.x/8.x) indicates the quality/speed of the method:

  • 7.x - these methods provide the best quality but they're also the slowest ones. Use case: face identification in server systems on large databases (more than 1 million faces).
  • 6.x - these methods are faster compared to the 7.x methods. Use case: real-time face identification in a video stream on desktop/server platforms (x86). These methods can also be used to identify faces in a video stream on modern mobile platforms (arm) with at least 4 cores and a core frequency of at least 1.6GHz.
  • 8.x - the fastest methods. Use case: face identification in a video stream on mobile platforms (arm).

The second number indicates the method version. Older versions were released later and, as a result, they provide better quality. You can switch to them when updating the SDK from the corresponding lower versions. For example, if the 6.6 recognizer was used, it's recommended to use its new version 6.7 when upgrading the SDK. The template size and template creation speed remain the same, and the identification quality becomes better.

Current numbering system of methods used in Face SDK since version 3.3

The first number (starting from 9) indicates the method version. The higher the version, the better the quality.
The second number indicates the approximate template creation time in milliseconds on a modern x86 processor with a frequency of ~3GHz. The slower the method, the better its quality.

  • x.1000 and x.300 - these methods provide the best quality but they're also the slowest ones.* Use case: face identification in server systems on large databases (more than 1 million faces).
  • x.100 - these methods are faster compared to the x.1000 and x.300 methods. Use case: real-time face identification in a video stream on desktop/server platforms (x86). These methods can also be used to identify faces in a video stream on modern mobile platforms (arm) with at least 4 cores and a core frequency of at least 1.6GHz.
  • x.30 - the fastest methods. Use case: face identification in a video stream on mobile platforms (arm).

In some cases, the latest SDK version may contain updates not for all groups of identification methods. In this case you can either use the old identification method or compare its quality with the new methods from a faster group and switch to the new faster methods if you observe quality improvement. In addition, we provide recommendations on using the specific identification methods when upgrading to a newer version of the SDK.

Identification methods by use cases depending on Face SDK version

Use case/SDK versionSDK-2.0SDK-2.1SDK-2.2SDK-2.3SDK-2.5SDK-3.0SDK-3.1SDK-3.3SDK-3.4
Expert systemsmethod7method7method7v2method7v3method7v6method7v6method7v7method9v300 method9v1000method9v300 method9v1000 method9v300mask method9v1000mask
Identification in a video streammethod6v2method6v3method6v4method6v5method6v6method6v6method6v7method6v7method6v7
Mobile platformsmethod8v6method8v7method9v30method9v30 method9v30mask

* - You can speed up the methods using the AVX2 instruction set (available only on Linux x86 64-bit). If you want to use the AVX2 instruction set, move the contents of the lib/tensorflow_avx2 directory to the lib directory. You can check the available instructions by running the command grep flags /proc/cpuinfo

To identify faces, create the Recognizer object by calling the FacerecService.createRecognizer method with the specified configuration file.

To create Encoder for one stream, specify the parameters processing_threads_count=true and matching_threads_count=false.
To create MatcherDB for one stream, specify the parameters processing_threads_count=false and matching_threads_count=true.

Here is the list of all configuration files and recognition methods available at the moment:

  • method6_recognizer.xml – method 6
  • method6v2_recognizer.xml – method 6.2
  • method6v3_recognizer.xml – method 6.3
  • method6v4_recognizer.xml – method 6.4
  • method6v5_recognizer.xml – method 6.5
  • method6v6_recognizer.xml – method 6.6
  • method6v7_recognizer.xml – method 6.7
  • method7_recognizer.xml – method 7
  • method7v2_recognizer.xml – method 7.2
  • method7v3_recognizer.xml – method 7.3
  • method7v6_recognizer.xml – method 7.6
  • method7v7_recognizer.xml – method 7.7
  • method8v6_recognizer.xml – method 8.6
  • method8v7_recognizer.xml – method 8.7
  • method9v30_recognizer.xml – method 9.30
  • method9v300_recognizer.xml – method 9.300
  • method9v1000_recognizer.xml – method 9.1000

The following configuration files can be used for recognition of masked faces:

  • method9v30mask_recognizer.xml
  • method9v300mask_recognizer.xml
  • method9v1000mask_recognizer.xml

These methods provide better identification quality of masked faces. For example, the standard 9v1000 method provides TAR=0.72 for masked faces, and the optimized 9v1000mask method provides TAR=0.85 at FAR=1E-6

Note: Learn how to detect and recognize masked faces in our tutorial.

Using the Recognizer object you can:

  • get a method name (Recognizer.getMethodName)
  • create a template of one captured face (Recognizer.processing) – you will get the Template object
  • match two templates (Recognizer.verifyMatch) – you can compare only the templates created by the same method (i.e. with the same configuration file)
  • load (deserialize) a template from a binary stream (Recognizer.loadTemplate) – you can load only the templates created by the same method (i.e. with the same configuration file)
  • create the TemplatesIndex object (Recognizer.createIndex), which is an index for quick search in large databases
  • search the Template in the TemplatesIndex (Recognizer.search)

1:N Identification Example

The example below shows the formation of a TemplateIndex based on face detections from one image. Recognizer.search returns search results for the requested template in the index in the amount of search_k_nearest.

// capture the faces
const std::vector<pbio::RawSample::Ptr> samples = capturer.capture(...);

// make templates
std::vector<pbio::Template::Ptr> templates;
for(size_t i = 0; i < samples.size(); ++i)
{
    const pbio::Template::Ptr templ = recognizer.processing(*samples[i]);
    templates.push_back(templ);
}

const int search_k_nearest = 1;
const pbio::TemplatesIndex::Ptr index = recognizer->createIndex(templates);
const std::vector<pbio::Recognizer::SearchResult> search_results = recognizer->search(*templates[0], *index, search_k_nearest, pbio::Recognizer::SEARCH_ACCELERATION_1);

With the Template object you can:

  • get a method name (Template.getMethodName)
  • save (serialize) a template in a binary stream (Template.save)

With the TemplatesIndex object you can:

  • get a method name (TemplatesIndex.getMethodName)
  • get a number of templates in the index (TemplatesIndex.size)
  • get a specified template from the index by its number (TemplatesIndex.at)
  • reserve memory for search (TemplatesIndex.reserveSearchMemory)

Note: The methods Recognizer.createIndex and TemplatesIndex.at do not copy the template data but only smart pointers to the data.