[HN Gopher] High-Speed Face-Tracking for Dynamic Facial Projecti...
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       High-Speed Face-Tracking for Dynamic Facial Projection Mapping
        
       Author : bukka
       Score  : 104 points
       Date   : 2025-01-31 16:37 UTC (3 days ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.vision.ict.e.titech.ac.jp)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.vision.ict.e.titech.ac.jp)
        
       | bhouston wrote:
       | Neat stuff. I wonder if one could use a neural network to try to
       | do prediction as well.
       | 
       | Human movements are super stereotyped in the face and you could
       | likely predict with decent accuracy the next frame given the
       | previous frames.
        
         | tsumnia wrote:
         | Check out a lot of DisneyResearchHub's videos on YouTube. They
         | are regularly posting research on object/face tracking and
         | projections.
         | 
         | That said as you mentioned faces are pretty stereotyped. We
         | "solved" face mapping two decades ago with Tim Cootes and Paul
         | Ekman's work. We're able to quickly map rough estimates using
         | traditional haar cascade classifiers and Viola-Jones with
         | AdaBoost. Neural Networks may help, but we have other solutions
         | that also handle the problem with "relative" ease (ignoring
         | lighting, occlusion, etc.)
        
       | _flux wrote:
       | Pretty cool. I've had this idea of converting face data into MIDI
       | CC data to use with DAWs or synths, this could be a useful
       | algorithm for it.
       | 
       | Is the source code available?
        
         | sporkl wrote:
         | Not this project, I've seen this something like this done with
         | Google's MediaPipe models to get face tracking data into
         | Max/MSP.
         | 
         | https://cycling74.com/forums/n4m-facemesh-handpose-google-me...
        
       | croes wrote:
       | > to create immersive experiences that have been used in the
       | makeup and entertainment industries.
       | 
       | Or for fake propaganda videos. Dangerous time for these kinds of
       | progress.
        
         | Hugsun wrote:
         | What sort of propaganda do you forsee this enabling?
        
           | croes wrote:
           | ,,Leaked" videos of political enemies saying abysmal things
           | 
           | The Protocols of the Elders of Zion on steroids.
        
             | grayhatter wrote:
             | Uh... this is a white paper about projecting an image onto
             | a moving face. Not super imposing, but projecting... with a
             | projector... using light... so what exactly are you worried
             | about with this tech? Or is it just that you're afraid of
             | face tracking in general? And it's not really about this
             | topic specifically?
        
               | croes wrote:
               | It's about high speed face tracking.
               | 
               | Can you imagine other use cases than projection?
        
               | grayhatter wrote:
               | > Can you imagine other use cases than projection?
               | 
               | yes
               | 
               | vtubers
               | 
               | human interface device for quadriplegics
               | 
               | automated camera tracking/zoom for video calls
               | 
               | emotion recognition support software for people with
               | difficulty reading or understanding emotions (ASD)
               | 
               | truly smart, smart home that can track and respond to
               | gaze, e.g. "can you turn off that light" and it will turn
               | off the light they're looking at
               | 
               | sleep detection for smart locks
               | 
               | liveness detection for identify verification systems
               | 
               | vr tracking for interactions that both escape the uncanny
               | valley, and feel more real time
               | 
               | need more?
        
               | croes wrote:
               | Yes, list the malicious ones too.
        
               | grayhatter wrote:
               | impersonation?
               | 
               | are there others?
        
               | HanayamaTriplet wrote:
               | You don't need high speed face tracking to make video
               | edits, those are not going to be done in real time.
        
       | xfeeefeee wrote:
       | The artistic possibilities of this are really fascinating.
       | Looking forward to what people come up with! Projection mapping
       | interactive art is always mesmerizing
        
         | bj-rn wrote:
         | This (older) collab is pretty nice:
         | https://www.vision.ict.e.titech.ac.jp/projects/WOW_TOKYO_AYA...
        
       | addandsubtract wrote:
       | What is the SotA OSS for face tracking these days? I've never
       | been able to make face tracking work without having alignment
       | issues during movement.
        
         | brcmthrowaway wrote:
         | You mean lag?
         | 
         | try mediapipe w/ gpu support
        
         | zipy124 wrote:
         | I don't know if it's SoTa but previously in a joint
         | academic+industrial project I've had very good success with
         | faceboxes for face tracking and then adaptive Wing loss for
         | facial alignment. With c++ and an ONNX runtime, I achieved very
         | fast and accurate results, being robust to lighting and harsh
         | angles.
         | 
         | https://github.com/protossw512/AdaptiveWingLoss
         | 
         | https://github.com/sfzhang15/FaceBoxes
        
       | vessenes wrote:
       | Ooooh, this is so cool. I didn't realize I was seeing projected
       | 'makeup' on faces until they showed some lower latency prior
       | work. Once I saw it, I could see occasional misalignment. But,
       | this is just an awesome and fun thing. I can imagine it being
       | just amazing for live theater costuming and story telling.
       | 
       | That said, it looks like the tech currently works at 1-2m range.
       | I'd guess this is because that's an easy range for a projector to
       | work at and provide high res, in which case there's no reason you
       | couldn't get a zoom setup going.
       | 
       | Perhaps some enterprising director of the next Disney theater
       | production will put the money in to get this working reliably on
       | stage.
        
       | suyash wrote:
       | Would love to know how to build such a system but with a normal
       | camera and projector if possible for creative art+tech projects!
        
       | brcmthrowaway wrote:
       | Can't mediapipe detect faces at 60fps?
        
       | m3kw9 wrote:
       | Is good but when you need that extra lens shift camera, it goes
       | from mass market to super niche.
        
         | echelon wrote:
         | It seems like they've done two things here - the physical
         | optical apparatus setup and the algorithm.
         | 
         | I'm wondering why the physical alignment is so important. Are
         | camera distortion models and mapping, view projection, etc.
         | just too slow or low quality to run?
         | 
         | I suppose I'll have to take a look at their paper later.
        
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