Masking faces in a webcam stream

Ideas
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1

Christopher question about augmented reality reminded me about a concealed identity trick used in video streams when black strips or blurred areas follow character faces. We can do this with Mathematica FindFaces functionality. There are a few different ways we can overlay transparent or opaque graphic objects and images with a live video stream. One of them is simply using Show. Let us find some simple overlay masks – and what can be better than some glasses, mustaches, goatees, and pipes?

mask = Import /@ {
   "http://i.imgur.com/155BjOY.png",
   "http://i.imgur.com/zq3Qsm6.png",
   "http://i.imgur.com/kONG87s.png",
   "http://i.imgur.com/WaQkDsn.png",
   "http://i.imgur.com/JZqCWEN.png",
   "http://i.imgur.com/9Y5CcUQ.png",
   "http://i.imgur.com/5CiN4Af.png"
   }


Now execute this code and bring a few friends to smile into camera:

Manipulate[
 i = CurrentImage[];
 Show[i, Graphics[
   MapThread[
    Inset[If[mix == "RANDOM", RandomChoice[mask], mix, mix], 
      Offset[{0, -.27 #2}, #1], Center, #2] &,
    {Mean /@ #, -.8 Subtract @@@ #[[All, All, 1]]} &[FindFaces[i]]
    ]
   ], ImageSize -> 450]
 , {{mix, mask[[7]], ""}, mask~Join~{"RANDOM"}, Setter}, 
 FrameMargins -> 0, SynchronousUpdating -> False]

489×409 66.4 KB

Thanks to our Wolfram volunteers for avid participation! Let me know if you can think of any improvements for this code.
Have fun!

9 Likes
2

Excellent! And now we need Mustache curves in Wolfram|Alpha to go with our other fun new curves. This should be a Movember feature request.

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