I Know That Face
Programming Snapshot – Facial Recognition
It is not just Facebook – every Linux user can extract faces from photos and assign them to real people, thanks to free libraries. Mike Schilli shows you how to do it.
Facebook users already take it for granted that the social network recognizes people from their circle of friends by their faces on uploaded pictures. Some free libraries, which every Linux user can download from GitHub, also extract faces from photos and compare them with previously recognized ones, thus allowing the home user to recognize people (e.g., in their private vacation photo collection) and to mark the images accordingly.
Much goes on behind the scenes in automatic face recognition. First, an algorithm has to pick out a face-like object from the millions of pixels in a photo (Figure 1): Two round, slightly darker areas as the eyes; a protruding object in the middle as the nose; a horizontal line below it as the mouth; and another below it as the chin – that could be a face (Figure 2).
Figure 1: The author hiking in the Arizona desert.
[...]
Buy this article as PDF
(incl. VAT)
Buy Linux Magazine
US / Canada
UK / Australia
Subscribe to our Linux Newsletters
Find Linux and Open Source Jobs
Subscribe to our ADMIN Newsletters
Support Our Work
Linux Magazine content is made possible with support from readers like you. Please consider contributing when you’ve found an article to be beneficial.
News
-
openSUSE Joins End of 10
openSUSE has decided to not only join the End of 10 movement but it also will no longer support the Deepin Desktop Environment.
-
New Version of Flatpak Released
Flatpak 1.16.1 is now available as the latest, stable version with various improvements.
-
IBM Announces Powerhouse Linux Server
IBM has unleashed a seriously powerful Linux server with the LinuxONE Emperor 5.
-
Plasma Ends LTS Releases
The KDE Plasma development team is doing away with the LTS releases for a good reason.
-
Arch Linux Available for Windows Subsystem for Linux
If you've ever wanted to use a rolling release distribution with WSL, now's your chance.
-
System76 Releases COSMIC Alpha 7
With scores of bug fixes and a really cool workspaces feature, COSMIC is looking to soon migrate from alpha to beta.
-
OpenMandriva Lx 6.0 Available for Installation
The latest release of OpenMandriva has arrived with a new kernel, an updated Plasma desktop, and a server edition.
-
TrueNAS 25.04 Arrives with Thousands of Changes
One of the most popular Linux-based NAS solutions has rolled out the latest edition, based on Ubuntu 25.04.
-
Fedora 42 Available with Two New Spins
The latest release from the Fedora Project includes the usual updates, a new kernel, an official KDE Plasma spin, and a new System76 spin.
-
So Long, ArcoLinux
The ArcoLinux distribution is the latest Linux distribution to shut down.