5 Reasons Why Face Detection is Important?

After the evolution of technology over the years, we have come from simple computer-vision techniques to advanced artificial intelligence-based face detection and recognition technologies. Advanced facial detection software can now detect a face in the blink of an eye and show the faces on your camera application or blur the people's faces in a video. So, how does face detection work, and why is it important? 

In this article, we touch upon some reasons why face detection is essential for innovative technology, businesses, or our day-to-day life!

Before we start, you can go to the Cameralyze Platform and see how to face-detection applications work. 

What Is Face Detection?

Face detection, also known as facial detection, is briefly a computer technology that relies on artificial intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML). It is used to detect human faces in images or videos. Thanks to face detection algorithms, It is possible to detect faces in an image or video regardless of the camera angles, the position of the subject's head, lighting, or skin color.

When this technology is combined with biometric security systems (especially facial recognition), it makes it possible to track people's faces in real time. Face detection is usually the first step in apps that use facial tracking, analysis, and recognition, and it dramatically affects how the next steps in the app will work.

Face detection helps with facial analysis as well. It helps to figure out which parts of a video or picture should be focused on to determine gender, age, or feelings. In the same way, face detection data is built into the algorithms of facial recognition systems, which create "faceprint" maps of facial features. Face detection assists in identifying the elements of the video or image that are necessary to generate a faceprint.

How Does Face Detection Work?

Face detection technology uses algorithms to identify whether images include a face. Face detection software primarily relies on intelligent algorithms that biometrical map out facial characteristics acquired in pictures and video frames.

Here are the exact technologies that are used to make face detection apps. These are:

• Neural Networks 
• OpenCV  
• Matlab 
• TensorFlow
  

These methods, which include OpenCV, Neural Networks, Matlab, etc., all use nearly the same process for detecting faces. Multiple faces can be found in an image using the face detection function. 

Here is the Face Detection process for OpenCV:

1. By specifying the picture's location, the image is first imported. The image is then converted from RGB to grayscale since grayscale makes it simple to identify faces.
2. Then, if necessary, the photographs are resized, cropped, blurred, and sharpened by image manipulation. 
3. The next stage is image segmentation, which separates the various things present in a single image or is used for contour detection so that the classifier can swiftly identify the objects and faces in the image.
4. The Haar-Like features method, suggested by Voila and Jones for face detection, is the next stage. This method is used to locate the faces of people in a frame or picture. All human faces exhibit certain common characteristics, such as the nose area is brighter than the eye region and the eyes being darker than their neighboring pixels.
5. The haar-like algorithm is also used for selection extraction for an object in an image. Thanks to detection technologies, identifying eyes, noses, mouths, and other facial features of a face in the image are found. Because it is utilized to pick out the most important characteristics in a picture and extract them for facial detection.
6. The face's position, or the area of interest in the image, is indicated in the following phase by providing the coordinates of x, y, w, and h. The region of interest where the face is detected can then be marked with a rectangular box.
   

In this way, the face detection process is completed. 

PRO TIP: You can find the guide on how to build Face Detection Technology on the Cameralyze platform without the need for code knowledge here. Try now.

Why Is Face Detection Important?

Face detection is the first stage in face analysis, face tracking, and, most crucially, facial recognition systems, all subsequent steps. The technology is expanding at a rapid pace, and it is used in a variety of applications, including device unlocking, banking, tourism, police enforcement, building security, and others.

In addition, face detection is also needed for facial recognition algorithms to recognize which parts of a picture should be used to render face prints and which parts should be ignored. 

These all make facial detection very important, but in which areas are face detection used and why is it important? Here are the reasons why it is essential for many spaces:

Face detection boosts productivity by raising accuracy.

Undoubtedly, the most prominent feature of face detection is that it does this job automatically. Imagine if an employee waits for hours at the store entrance and counts the people who come in, or when you take a portrait on your camera, you have to make adjustments by hand to focus/tag the faces. 

Face detection is a very important technology that saves us from all these bothers or troubles because it lets facial identification be fully automated hence enhancing productivity while also raising the rate of accuracy.

Face detection provides better security.

Face detection technology provides better security and surveillance opportunities. It increases the level of protection. For instance, facial detection software helps the enhancement of surveillance strategies and serves as the foundation for the identification of terrorists and criminals. Country borders, Casinos, Museums, Banks, or Prisons are some of the other examples where this system can be used for security. 

• ​​Face detection helps with surveillance and is the primary way that terrorists and criminals are identified.
• Face detection is easy and fast to integrate. Most face recognition systems work with security software.
• As mentioned above, face detection makes it possible to identify faces, which increases efficiency and accuracy automatically.

Thanks to face detection, it is also possible to create face recognition technologies like FaceID or faceprint readers. In this way, people can unlock their phones or the outer doors of their houses.

Face detection builds face recognition technology.

As it is mentioned above, without face detection, it would be impossible to bring face recognition technology (see how to face recognition app works).

It is fundamental to face recognition because all face recognition technologies intrinsically detect faces at first. Therefore, it is very significant for software or application developers as somehow they use face detection if they want to create an application with face recognition.

You can visit our blog about face recognition services and discover the top recognition services.

Briefly, Face detection can be used for more than just recognizing faces. Face detection is used to verify biometrics and unlock devices, while face recognition can also be used to analyze and track faces. It is certain that without face detection, it is impossible to use face recognition. This is why face detection builds face recognition technology possible.

On the other hand, face detection is used by all facial recognition systems, but not all facial recognition systems can be used to find faces. Face detection can also be used for facial motion capture, which is when cameras or laser scanners are used to turn a person's facial movements into a digital database. 

Face detection makes facial motion capture possible.

Some popular applications like Snapchat or Instagram allow their users to modify their faces with fun filters in real-time. This is made feasible by facial recognition algorithms, which inform the apps that there is a face that may be tracked and modified on the screen.

Thanks to Face Detection technology, "facial motion capture" is used to create computer graphics (CG), 3D animations, and real-time avatars for movies, video games, and other media channels. It makes facial emotion tracking possible. 

Because the motion of computer-generated figures is drawn from the gestures of actual people, the resulting CG character animations look more natural and subtle than the animation had been designed by hand.

Face detection makes life easier.

Face detection makes things easier in all areas of our lives. It saves time and inspires new ideas. For instance, "Face Pay" technologies can be very popular in the future because it has a great potential to reduce the length of time spent in lengthy checkout lines with sluggish payments.

Face detection can also help to provide data such as tracking the number of customers who come to the store or are in the store at the same time. In this way, creating marketing strategies gets easier. 

In addition to this, it allows following the number of customers inside even in the cases of infection, such as the limit of the number of people in closed areas during the Covid-19 pandemic. 

As we mentioned, face detection is critical in building new applications. For instance, you create many applications on the Cameralyze Platform with face detection and recognition services like crowd counting or face blur.

These can be only a few of the benefits showing the importance of face detection technology. There are still many areas in which it is currently being used or will be used in the future.

Final Thoughts

It is possible to witness face detection in our daily lives since it is the basis of a large number of facial apps. Face recognition is used to unlock our smartphones, and this would not be practicable without face detection. Similarly, face recognition surveillance technologies, face blurring, picture tagging, photo filters, and many more also fall under it. 

Using Face detection technology in these areas and more is also possible with Cameralyze. Cameralyze offers no-code user-oriented face detection applications with superior performance and high privacy. Try Cameralyze now!