I need to develop a mobile app (primarily for Android, iOS, and Windows Mobile) for face detection. Obviously, OpenCV is the most well known. However, I'm unsure about the compatibility among the different OS'es. Besies OpenCV, are there other options? 2 key requirements:
-Open source/commercial libraries but must run locally/natively in devices without internet connection so Player Service API would not work
-Capable of tracking multiple faces in motion
Anyone can share their experiences/knowledge in this area? Any pointers greatly appreciated!
You are really pushing the margin a whole lot.
Face detection generally consists of three different areas.
1) Recognizing a face as a face (there is a mouth, a nose, eyes) This is useful for focusing a snapshot.
2) Recognizing facial features, looking for emotion (mouth in a smile) or eye tracking.
3) Facial recognition. Using the system to perform identification by attaching a name to a face.
You want to use a face recognition tool to perform tracking and count people entering a particular place, using a mobile phone.
First tracking is pretty difficult. Its one thing to perform simple face identity in a single frame snap shot. That's pretty easy. The problem is, you may find your frame rates so poor that you can only accommodate 1 frame every three or even every five seconds. That will make it nearly impossible to track and count faces. Counting faces is easy, but what's hard is to determine if that face in the screen was counted previously or is a new person entering the screen.
OpenCV has a whole lot of tools and examples out there for facial recognition, image tracking, etc. I'd strongly recommend playing with OpenCV and test its capabilities. I'd recommend the C/C++ versions (unless you are already a Python programmer) Here's a place to start, a blog entry I wrote a few months ago.
I really like the tutorials from Kyle Hounslow... Look him up on youtube. His videos are well thought out, they are interesting and he provides example code for all his work. Go ahead and watch all of those videos, and repeat all of those examples. Get a feel for what is available in frame rates using a laptop.
The next part of your task is porting stuff from OpenCV to Android/iOS. That's no easy task. I'm sure folks have tried, and I'm sure helpful hints are out there.
I don't mean to dissuade you from an awesome investigation but do note what you want to do is mighty difficult. You will have to invest some time to even determine where all the difficult areas are. And unfortunately you won't know effective frame rates and performance until you build some stuff and try it.
Good luck with the journey.
I'm trying to build a car which can drive itself using video frames from an Android camera on-board using Neural networks. I haven't bought the hardware (car + android).
Meanwhile, I want to simulate the driver application (on my laptop) by streaming video frames from a 3D simulator and see if works properly.
What's an easy-to-learn and mostly pre-configured engine for this?
I think there are no easy-way to do that. In our robotic laboratory we use ROS to do this type of simulations.
It includes a 3D simulator (Gazebo), camera and sensor simulation and a lot of other stuff. You can see an example of 3D robot/camera simulation in this video.
Unfortunately ROS is not easy-to-learn and there is no complete documentation.
Another possibility is to use Blender (the open source, cross platform suite of tools for 3D). There are some robotic project that use Blender (you can see this page for more info) but I have no personal experience with it.
You can try out V-Rep, even though its a commercial product its much superior in performance. It has built in models for autonomous cars. If you are from India, contact Asimov Robotics, they are the resellers
To update this answer for 2017, Gazebo appears to be one of the leading 3D Simulation engines available today. Definitely worth looking into for this kind of application.
An excerpt from their home page:
Robot simulation is an essential tool in every roboticist's toolbox. A
well-designed simulator makes it possible to rapidly test algorithms,
design robots, perform regression testing, and train AI system using
realistic scenarios. Gazebo offers the ability to accurately and
efficiently simulate populations of robots in complex indoor and
outdoor environments. At your fingertips is a robust physics engine,
high-quality graphics, and convenient programmatic and graphical
interfaces. Best of all, Gazebo is free with a vibrant community.
http://gazebosim.org/
Also, the game Grand Theft Auto has been used to test self driving car algorithms. There are APIs to do everything from change the pedestrian traffic, to lights, to weather and more.
I know that Artificial Intelligence field is very vast and there are many books on it. But i just want to know the any resource where i can get the simple inroduction to all Artificail Intelligence techniques like
It would like to have 1 or 2 page introduction of all techniques and their examples of how they can be applied or for what purpose they can be used. I am interested in
Backpropagation Algoritm
Hebbs Law
Bayesian networks
Markov Chain Models
Simulated Annealing
Tabu Search
Genetic Algorithms or Evolutionary Algos
Now there are many variants and more AI techniques. And each one have many books written on them. i am unable to decide which algos i can use unless i know what they are capable of doing.
So can i find 1-2 page inroduction of them with Application examples
Essentials of Metaheuristics covers several of these - I can't promise it'll cover all of them, but I know there's good stuff on simulated annealing and genetic algorithms in there. Probably at least a few of the others, but I'd have to re-download it to check. It's available for free download.
It can be a bit light on the theory, but it'll give you a straightforward description, some explanation of when you'd want to use each, and a lot of useful pseudocode.
Here's an image on local search (= tabu search without tabu) from the Drools Planner manual:
I am working on similar images for Greedy algorithms, brute force, branch and bound and simulated annealing.
As an example of Genetic Algorithms implementation I can give you this.
It's an API I developed for GA, with one implementation for each operator, and one concrete example problem solved ((good) Soccer Team among ~600 players with budget restriction). Its all setup so you run it with mvn exec:java and watch it evolving in the console output. But you can implement your own problem structure, or even other operators (crossing, mutating, selection) methods.
I have to prepare a comparison between the following technologies to present it to my Project Manager, but I fell that I'm lost, so if any one can help I will be thankful
I want to compare between them in the following areas:
the support of online video streaming
the budget of using each one
Learning Time will be needed to learn the technology
Which one is the standard and will target a lot of users
The support if I found any problem
Bugs and security issues
connection to DB, SOA and web services
supporting of multi player
The support of online video streaming
Some of the X3D viewers support video streaming (and some even 3D streaming, for things such as augmented reality).
Which one is the standard and will target a lot of users
X3D is a standardized format, such as JPEG with multiple companies being able to manipulate such data and is even officially recommended by HTML5 specs whereas Unity ties you to a single company. Even if most X3D viewers are plugin-based like Flash, there exists also native implementations such as X3DOM to display/interact with X3D files for any browser that supports WebGL.
Connection to DB, SOA and web services
I would usually recommend using a webservice for interfacing with a DB, and yes, X3D can interact with webservices (XML, JSON). There is even a standard binary format that is fast to transfer and parse large contents faster.
Supporting of multi player
Some X3D-supporting providers offer a multiusers service, such as Bitmanagement's BS Collaborate server, but I've seen people using Darkstar/RedDwarf to make multiusers 3D environments as well.
the support of online video streaming
Unity 3D does not support video streaming, unless done through textures, which will give you a really slow frame rate.
I don't know for sure about X3D, but I would doubt it was really made for such tasks.
Silver light has good video support, it should be easy to stream with.
HTML only supports streaming video if using HTML 5, for which it gives the best user experience when user's browser supports it.
Flash is the de-facto for video streaming. It is extensively widespread. They use it for YouTube for example.
the budget of using each one
The cheapest of them all is HTML, it is free. Then you can theoretically set up something for free in flash using Flex SDK and server streaming technology such as Red5 (both open source and free). After that, I believe that all others would probably be on par cost wise, Unity3D coming in as the cheapest of the paid alternatives.
Learning Time will be needed to learn the technology
Listed in order of fastest one to learn to slowest (assuming no prior experience in any):
HTML
Flash/Silverlight
Unity3D
X3D
Which one is the standard and will target a lot of users
Flash is the most widespread. Its only competitor would be HTML 5, as new browsers tend to support it and its the only possible option on iOS. On the other hand, if 3D is what you want, then Unity3D is the standard for now, might be followed by HTML 5 in the future.
The support if I found any problem
Well, Unity3D would offer you good paid support, flash and silver light also (but only when you pay for streaming server licenses). HTML, X3D will not give you any support, but you can find a lot of information on the internet. There is also extensive information about Flash and Silverlight on the internet, but mostly Flash.
Bugs and security issues
All are pretty secure, I'm just not sure about X3D, but all others are comparable in term of security or bug issues.
connection to DB, SOA and web services
Easy to do with HTML, Flash and Silverlight. Harder with Unity3D, and hardest with X3D.
supporting of multi player
Multi-player what? If you are making a game, then clearly I would say your real options are Unity3D if the game is to be in 3D, Flash if it is to be done in 2D. Check out SmartFoxServer for easy multiplayer server.
My 2 cents:
the support of online video streaming:
Some X3D players do support it. Unity does in some ways : http://unity3d.com/unity/features/audio-and-video
the budget of using each one:
X3D and Unity3d are free. You can pay for Unity licenses for extra features and platforms like iOS and Android. If you need to write plugins for Unity, you'll need the $1500 license. There are no costs for distribution of Unity products.
Learning Time will be needed to learn the technology:
Both X3D and Unity3d have active communities and many online resources and offline books. Unfortunately for X3D, the best content creation tool (Vivaty Studio) is no longer supported officially, but X3D is supported in Maya, Max, Blender, and many other 3D programs. Unity's online docs are excellent and the answers.unity3d.com forum (and other forums) are free and fast.
Which one is the standard and will target a lot of users:
'Standard' Well, HTML is the broadest standard. X3D (if including VRML) is the oldest most widely used 3D standard. HTML you have. HTML5 is coming, 'real soon now' (I'm already turning blue). If you mean 'most readily available' the HTML is #1, Flash is #2 (as everyone has a browser, and most computers come with Flash installed already). Flash needs to be installed. Unity needs to be installed too, but it's at least as fast and easy to install as Flash, and it's gotten millions of downloads, so it's getting pretty pervasive. X3D requires a plugin (this should change sometime 'real soon now' with x3dom on HTML5), but the many X3D players are all a little different from each other.
The support if I found any problem:
All have much online community support. X3D has a spec committee but that's not really support per se, you'd have to contact the X3D plugin provider (Bitmanagement, Cortona, Octaga, Exit Reality, Fraunhoffer, etc.) Unity has great online community forums, you can pay for premium support, but I'd only do that if I needed a serious bug or feature that has no work-around.
Bugs and security issues:
X3D's bugs depend on which player you use. Unity has bugs, but the product is pretty solid (I've only crashed it once, and I use is all day, every day, for over a year). Both have a mind toward security, but neither of these are totally secure, especially since you can write scripts that are inherently not secure. So you have a hand in how secure YOUR content will be. Some X3D players support encryption. Unity products are compiled.
connection to DB, SOA and web services:
You can use something like AJAX or JSON or whatever in all these platforms, no? So if it's by web service, sure. If by direct local access, I know Unity can do that. Both Unity and Flash require cross-server xml files on the server to allow access cross-domain (in the web player for Unity anyway).
supporting of multi player:
Unity has excellent multi player networking components. X3D (spec) supports it too, but it really depends on which X3D player you go with as to how well it actually works. Worst case, you can use AJAX or JSON or whatever to roll your own.
Which you choose depends mostly on what you want to do with it. Flash is generally the best route right now, unless it's all about 3D, then I'd try Unity. But a year from now, HTML5 alternatives will begin to take over. Flash DOES support 3D, there are different ways it can be done. Vivaty had a full-featured X3D player written in Flash, so it can be done. There are several good 3rd party 3d plugins for Flash.
I totally agree with wildpeaks : )
Connection to DB, SOA and web services: easy to do with HTML, Flash and Silverlight. Harder with Unity3D, and hardest with X3D.
Reply: I think X3D is not hardest.
X3D(X3DOM) can interact with webservices (XML) as very easy in this example/tutorial
Flash supports hardware accelerated 3d, and comes out of the box with 3d support. In addition, there is the papervision library for more advanced 3d. Unity3d is also supported
as a flash library.
I would consider Flex as a real alternative to Flash. It has the same actionscript language, but uses a tag based syntax called MXML, similar to silverlight. Database remoting is extremely simple. You can access your .Net/Java/Php objects directly on the front end without having to deal with serialisation issues. All of the Flash libraries are accessible.
There is also the X3D player from instantreality.org, supporting video streaming & decoding, XMLHttp request via scripting and its free for non commercial usage.
Flash 3D isn't good 3D for any application of real-time 3D. It is 2.5D with some tricks.
X3D is easy to learn for simple things and harder as complexity goes up. It does have the advantage of being VRML with pointy brackets so the free content, examples and toolkits are easily found. I did comparison tests of the various players. BS Contact is the best for the ability to handle the most complex content with the fastest frame rate and rich color palette. Network support is still non-standard although XMLHTTP and database connections are easy to bolt on. As others have said, Instant Reality is coming on fast and supported by people with a deep understanding of the past implementations and future requirements.
The decision comes down to the project type. A simple comparison rating such as you are is misleading at best but thanks for giving it a shot. I've used VRML through all of its incarnations and now X3D for world building and now as a source for 3D models in video work in combination with Sony Vegas. For cost-benefit without the need to use very expensive modeling toolkits, it is the best of all the choices.
I want to do a project Hadoop and map reduce and present it as my graduation project. To this, I've given some thought,searched over the internet and came up with the idea of implementing some basic knowledge mining algorithms say on a social websites like Facebook or may stckoverflow, Quora etc and draw some statistical graphs, comparisons frequency distributions and other sort of important values.For searching purpose would it be wise to use Apache Solr ?
I want know
If such thing is feasible using the above mentioned tools, if so how should I build up on this little idea?
Where can I learn about knowledge mining algorithms which are easy to implement using java and map reduce techniques?
In case this is a wrong idea please suggest what else can otherwise be done on using Hadoop and other related sub-projects?
Thank you
Your idea probably should be developed a bit further. E.g. try to think what is exactly what you are trying to achieve.
If you are looking for an easy to learn data mining tool take a look at Hive. More advanced algorithms you may find in Mahout - an open source implementation of many data mining algorithms.
If you are looking for examples or ideas take a look at this project which demonstrates use of Hadoop and Hive in tracking trends on one of the most populart social website, that is on Wikipedia: https://github.com/datawrangling/trendingtopics