Marijn Speelman

In a previous blog I talked about using Flash and C++ for face detection. I’m going to use face detection to determine if the player of the game has the right distance to the webcam and is standing in the middle of the screen. But it’s also lots of fun to attach virtual objects to the face (like done in the more expensive Logitech webcam series), or to put filters and effects on the facial area.

Here is a quick example. The Jason Voorhees hockey mask moves along with my head in real time (about 60ms delay). The size of the sprite also changes as you move back and forward.

Edit: Or go on a killing spree in style ;)

I came across an interesting TED talk by Jonathan Harris. He talked about a few of the applications he has been working on.

One of those is We Feel Fine in which new blog posts are scanned every few hours to collect the feelings of the blogger. Each time someone says ‘I feel’ (or I’m feeling, I felt, …) the emotion is logged, next to the gender, age and location. This data is then used in some really pretty visualizations. Especially the photo’s attached to some of the ‘I feel’ sentences can be quite impressive. You can play around with it at their website.

The other application that really interested me is called Universe. The idea behind it is to draw / write the persons, events, etc on the virtual sky. It’s hard to describe it correctly, so you just have to watch the video below, or check out Jonathan Harris’ website.