Face Detection using Viola-Jones Algorithm in Matlab

Face detection is the ability to distinguish faces from non-face objects in an image or a video. Viola-Jones algorithm is an object recognition framework that allows the detection of human faces. Viola-Jones algorithm is robust, powerful, and faster despite being outdated. <!--more--> In this article, we will look at how to use the Viola-Jones algorithm to detect faces in real-time.

Prerequisites #

1. Have Matlab installed on your computer.
2. Have basic knowledge of Matlab and Computer vision toolbox.

Need for face detection #

There are several projects that require human faces as the primary input for their implementation.

A few projects may include:

1. Face recognition.
2. Face recognition-based security systems and attendance systems.
3. Facial expression recognition.
4. Mood analysis based on facial expression, and many more.

Viola-Jones algorithm #

Paul Viola and Michael Jones developed the Viola-Jones algorithm in 2001. This algorithm allows us to detect human faces. The algorithm has four stages:

1. Haar-like features selection.
2. Creating an integral image.
3. Adaboost training.
4. Cascading classifiers.

MATLAB has the vision.CascadeObjectDetector system object, which has the viola-jones algorithm used detect faces/objects and it is found in the computer toolbox. The cascadeObjectDetector can be used to detect people’s faces, nose, eyes, mouth, and upper body.

vision.CascadeObjectDetector is bundled with several pre-trained classifiers used to detect frontal faces, profile faces, noses, eyes, and upper body.

Although, these classifiers are not always sufficient for a particular application. The custom classifier can be trained on an image database through the computer vision toolbox.

Run the command below to verify if computer vision toolbox has been installed on your computer.

>> v = ver;
>> setdiff({v.name},'MATLAB')'

When this code is executed, it shows all the installed Matlab toolboxes.

If you don't have the computer vision toolbox:

• Click on the adds-ons dropdown menu and select get more apps. A new tab is opened in your browser.
• Click on the search box and write computer vision toolbox.
• Once the search is done, select Computer Vision Toolbox Interface for Open CV in MATLAB and click on the download button.
• Once the download is complete, install the package, this will require you to login into your mathwork account. Click on the create account button if you do not have an account.
• Follow the instructions to install the package.

For facial or upper body image detection,

1. Create the vision.CascadeObjectDetector object and set its properties.
2. Call the object with the argument as if it were a function.

The image that will be used to detect faces can either be read directly or chosen from the files depending on the user preference. When you add the image directly by using the imshow command, it will display the detected face.

Imshow(‘engineers.jpg’)

At the moment, you don’t need to add the image directly since there could be many images to be used for detection. In this case, you choose the image from the files.

For this, you can use the code below:

[filename,filepath] = uigetfile('*.*','select an image');

You first read the path of the image then read the Image using the imshow command.

Filewithpath = strcat(filepath,filename)
Img = imread(filewithpath)

The image that we have defined will be saved in the variable Img.

Define the face Detector object.

faceDetector =  vision.CascadeObjectDetector

We then use one of the attributes from the vision.CascadeObjectDetector, i.e. MergeThreshold. This will be used for better detection and accuracy.

faceDetector.MergeThreshold = 4;

Four is the default value in this case. MergeThreshold can be adjusted depending on the level of accuracy required. The accuracy is higher at the lower values and lowers at the higher value, i.e. the face detection accuracy is higher at 3 than it is at 8.

Note that the MergeThreshold is an integer.

Boundingboxes = faceDetector(Img)

When we execute the code above, it returns an m-by-4 matrix bounding-box. This determines the M bounding boxes containing the detected objects. The detector performs multiscale face detection on the input image, Img.

We then introduce conditions for detection. The first condition is when the face is detected. When the face is detected in an image, it should return a bounding box around the detected face.

We then insert annotation with the name face in a rectangle. The line width is the thickness of the bounding boxes and it can be changed to any value.

Note that the values are in pixel so it determines the thickness of the bounding box in pixel. We then display the image using the imshow command.

Here is the code.

if ~isempty(bboxes)
    Imf = insertObjectAnnotation(img,'rectangular',bboxes,'Faces','linewidth',30);
    imshow(Imf)
    title('detected faces')

The second condition is if the face is not detected. We insert text at the location [0 0] which is the x-axis, and the y-axis, with the label ‘no faces detected’. You can change the font size and opacity of the box of this text and display the image.

Here is the code:

else
    position = [0 0];
    label='no face detected';
    Imgn = insertText(Img,position,label, 'fontsize',25,'BoxOpacity',1);
    imshow(Imgn)
end

Below is the whole application source code.

Img = imread('building.jpg');
faceDetector = vision.CascadeObjectDetector;
faceDetector.MergeThreshold = 4;
bboxes = faceDetector(img);
if ~isempty(bboxes)
    Imf = insertObjectAnnotation(Img,'rectangle',boundingboxes,'Faces','linewidth',3);
    imshow(Imf)
    title('detected faces')
else
    position = [0 0];
    label='no face detected';
    imgn = insertText(img,position,label, 'fontsize',25,'BoxOpacity',1);
    imshow(imgn)
end

When we run the program, the following image is displayed on our figure window.

When we use an image that has no face, the following is displayed on our figure window.

Figure #

This code can also be used to detect eyes, mouths, and/or noses. You only need to change the names, that is replace face with a nose. You would need to vary the MergeThreshold for accuracy.

Conclusion #

The Viola-jones algorithm is the best algorithm for face object detection in real-time. It is accurate and fast and that makes it efficient when using it in the detection process.

Happy coding.

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Peer Review Contributions by: Peter Kayere