#javacv

1. Install Java Development Kit (JDK) from the link below. Make sure to install 32bit or 64 bit as per your processor.

http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javase/downloads/jdk-6u32-downloads-1594644.html 

2. Install Microsoft Visual C++ redistributable package

For 32 bit: http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=5555 For 64 bit: http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=14632

3. Download OpenCV super-pack version 2.4.5 for Windows from Sourceforge and extract it in you C:\Opencv

http://sourceforge.net/projects/opencvlibrary/files/opencv-win/2.4.5/

4. Set OpenCV .dll in systems path so that JavaCV can access it.

Go to Control Panel > System Security > System > Advanced System Settings > Environment Variables In System variable select path and click on Edit. Now add following address in Variable address. I have extracted opencv package in C:\ directory. If you have installed at different location please update address accordingly.  For 32 bit: C:\opencv\build\x86\vc10\bin For 64 bit: C:\opencv\build\x64\vc10\bin Once this is done, the most important step is to Restart Windows.

5. Download JavaCV 0.5 binary package from link below and extract it.

One of my colleagues was building a criminal database management system for an assignment for his coursework. There came a requirement where he wants to recognize a criminal of an image - something like they show in Television series.

It was a cool idea and he asked my help to build that component of the system. I looked into possible technical solution pre-made for our usage. And voila - OpenCV was right there to be used for the FaceDetection. OpenCV source itself has a special class that provided the features out of box. Though OpenCV is C++ based there exists a binding for Java via JavaCV.

Now the challenge was to plug in the OpenCV component to the PHP application. For this I build a small jar package that can be run via Command line. As for the inputs it will be using a file created by the PHP application. Then the results will also be written back to a file. The PHP application will read the output file and comprehend which criminal in the database is referred by the image.

Their were many challenges out there when building the small component - Due to lack of documentation and proper understanding of the subject it took many days to work out the solution. Also there are two different terms involved in the approach - Face Detection, Face Recognition. Face detection refers to finding if the image has human faces in it. Face recognition on the other hand features matching up against previously taken faces and figuring out which is the most matching face.

I’ll post the solution over at github as a gist in the coming week.