The technological developments in the last decade have literally transformed our lifestyle. The amazing developments like Biometric recognition solutions, Fitness and health tracking software amazed us and now they have becomes this part of our lives. The technology continues to amaze us with more developments and the recent and the most exciting of all of them is this Face recognition.

Face detection does not only works for screen locks and security but there is something more to it. The Face detection software solution involves identifying human faces in digital images and videos and then the AI starts working on it and will give us complete details about the face. These details include information like size, location, and pose of the person. Yes, this has been the recent development in the Facial Recognition Technology (FRT).

 

Face Detection Software Solutions

So, this all has been possible because of the amazing Face detection software tools that came into being. Now, it has become a billion dollars industry and this is just the beginning. There will be a lot coming in soon. So, in this article, we will talk about the significance and implication of face detection technology in various industries and how different face detection software actually works. We will also be discussing different free and open-source software solutions available in the market.

So, let us dig in and get some useful insights about face detection software and technology:
The face detection technology has surpassed ordinary uses paradigm and is working on solutions that we could never imagine. Yes, these face detection software tools actually analyse the characteristics of the facial images of a person that were taken using a digital video camera. The latest of which we can talk about is the Airport security wherein the CCTV cameras check the pictures and match them with the passenger’s picture in the passport. The tool behind this is the pattern detection technology and the algorithms tell if the image matches or not.

facial recognition technology

 

So, there are different technological methods employed for doing this:

-> Knowledge-Based: The basic principle guiding the structure of a face like a face must have a nose, eyes, and a mouth at defined distances which makes up to recognizable facial features.

-> Feature-Based: This method focuses more on the particular features of the face.

-> Template-Matching: This method uses parameterized or pre-defined face templates for face detection.

-> Appearance-Based: This method depends upon a set of face models and is also used in feature extraction for face recognition.

Now, there are different uses of face detection software in various industries and sectors. Mostly, what it is being used is for facial biometrics for security and employee data storage. Yet, there are still many more uses of the same that are coming in the picture.

a). Payment industry- Can you imagine making payments by just showing your face to the screen? Well, if you have not thought of it yet, it is time you get ready to be amazed by this. New selfie pay apps are coming in the picture where the payments will be confirmed by just bring the phone close to your face without eve using their credit/debit cards for online shopping. The face detection and recognition devices have also been installed at shopping stores and ATMs.

Face detection payment app

 

b). Security– Facial biometrics can also be used to keep certain places and safes secure and prevent the entry of intruders in such spaces. This can be done by coming up with Innovative facial security measures.

Face detection security

 

c). Criminal Identification – Face detection applications in combination with Machine Learning (ML) algorithm helps in identifying the suspects from people’s driver’s licenses, merchant licenses, delivery service licenses, and so on.

face recognition criminal identification

 

d). Advertising – Face detection software systems allow companies to recognize specific demographics ad that is how they have been targeting their audience accordingly.

face recognition advertising

 

e). Healthcare – Apart from securing patient’s data what the face detection is being used is to identify illnesses by checking out the features of the patients. So, we see there are many uses of the face detection techniques that we ever thought of. Different industries are applying the technology in different ways and it is certainly going to change the way things have been.

face detection in healthcare

 

So, what we mostly need to know about the technology as of now is about the best free and open-source face detection software solutions that you should consider.

1. OpenBR– OpenBR has been one of the pioneers in the face detection and recognition technology and is probably the one which is the most in use. This framework supports the development of open algorithms and reproducible evaluations. The first version of the same was released on September 29, 2019 for Windows, Linux, OS X, and Raspbian operating systems.

The best features of the OpenBR Software is that it has this API that can be easily embedded with any of your applications which you are running in Windows, Linux, OS X, and Raspbian operating systems. Once it has been embedded with your application what all you can use it for is facial recognition, detection, and land-marking. The algorithm it uses for face detection is 4SF2 also works for age estimation and gender estimation.

2. OpenFaceTracker – This is one of the most used and trending facial recognition programs as it comes with this amazing feature where it can detect more than faces in a video, or an image by recalling information from the pre-stored database. It is one of the best open-source face detection software available in the technological market and even comes with a licensed and stable version.

The technology behind this software has been inspired by the American TV show Person of Interest and works in real-time. So, basically what this software does is woks on Real-time fetching and processing of the images followed by identification, stock, and available print data.
For use, it is available with an open- API that can be installed and embedded with the application but it works only for Windows-based system.
But before installing the API what you will need to do is install OpenCV3.2 and QT4 on your computer and then you can explore all of its features and even enable or disable some of them.

3. Open EBTS- This amazing face detection and recognition software by ImageWare was developed for operating systems Windows and Linux. It is an open-source software that works on 32 and 64-bit data. It is a verified, stable and licensed platform that works on algorithms like C++, C, and Java which make sit quite easily accessible.
The software includes two open-source APIs: OpenEBTS API and OpenM1 API which comes with downloadable source code and can be easily embedded with your applications in Windows and Linux operating systems.
The initial version of the software was released on April 2010 and since then it has come with a few updated versions which are being used widely. This is a very secure and stable framework and is most widely being used by government agencies for the management of biometric data.

4. Flandmark- Flandmark is one open-source Face detection software that was developed mostly to be used for static images. It is based on the C library detection and works on landmark detection for operating systems like Windows, Linux, and Mac OS. The initial version was released on August 10, 2011 when this technology was in a very nascent stage but since then this has made quite many developments and has currently come up with its third updated version. The Flandmark can also be used in Python C, C++, and MATLAB and allows separate facial landmark software for each frame. Due to its ease of use, it has been the most adopted technology for various businesses.

5. Face++ – It is the most updated and the trending version of any of the face detection and recognition software as it comes with some really exciting and interesting features like it supports face comparing and face searching activities to match the faces of the persons with the available database.
It keeps coming up with specific feature-based and updated APIs and SDKs with up-to-date algorithms which make it available for offline and online use. There are two versions available of the same like Mobile SDK and all SDKs can be tested for free.
The detected faces are stored in the FaceSet and it uses as a unique ID Face_token to access that.
This is one most reliable trusted face detection and recognition software owing to its great features like precision and accuracy in detection, very strong and powerful unbreakable framework, frequent updates and secure APIs.

6. BioenableTech– This open-source free Face detection and recognition framework come in two versions. The BioenableTech– iFace and the BioenableTech – vFace both of these products from Bioenable Technology of which comes with their own set of uses and features.
The BioenableTech– iFace works mostly for face recognition and fingerprint detection. This is used in businesses and companies for multi-biometric identification program that records face and fingerprint time attendance.

The BioenableTech– iFace system is integrated with a 630MHz high-speed multi bio processor which enables it to support all of its operations on the 4.3 TFT touch screen. Along with face detection and recognition, it offers amazing features like face, finger, card, and password related identification methods and functions like EM Card, TCP/IP, Push Data, and Access Control.

The next that we are going to talk about is the amazing product by Bioenable Technology – vFace which again is a Face detection Time and Attendance. The vFace system is made available in elegant ergonomic design.

It is somewhat updated version of the later in which the user can be identified with the help of infra-red optical system even in a poorly lit environment which makes it a more secure and reliable option than the later. The system requirements for this framework are even somewhat lenient like its specifications are only a 3inch TFT touch screen, nine digits user ID, and T9 input.
The security and reliability of this framework make sit quite widely used the software in government agencies, corporate houses, banks, and huge civil houses and institutions.

7. DeepFace– This amazing Face detection & face recognition system was a creation by Facebook. Yes, actually this software was developed by a research group at Facebook. The idea was to develop and create a framework that can detect and locate human faces in a given image or video which resulted in this amazing creation which is based on highly reliable deep learning methods with cutting edge technology to obtain a real-time response for the real-world applications.

The features that are offered in this software are instant and real-time face detection and recognition by real-time uploading of a picture from the device or by clicking a picture from the camera.
The results re prompted immediately as the picture is uploaded and are displayed below. The results include information like face detection, face analysis, face verification, and emotion analysis. All of these analyses are done on the basis of age, gender, head pose, eye status, and skin colour.

These are some of the most trusted and reliable face detection and recognition software while there are more available in the market. You can try and test their free versions and then make a choice accordingly.