Tag: Python

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From Zero to Creating Photo Mosaic using Faces with OpenCV

What will we cover in this tutorial?

  1. Where and how to get images you can use without copyright issues.
  2. How to extract the faces of the images.
  3. Building a Photo Mosaic using the extracted images of faces.

Step 1: Where and how to get images

There exists a lot of datasets of faces, but most have restrictions on them. A great place to find images is on Pexels, as they are free to use (see license here).

Also, the Python library pexels-api makes it easy to download a lot of images. It can be installed by the following command.

pip install pexels-api

To use the Pexels API you need to register.

  1. Sign up as a user at Pexels.
  2. Accept the email sent to your inbox (the email address you provide).
  3. Request your API key here.

Then you can download images by a search query from this Python program.

from pexels_api import API
import requests
import os.path
from pathlib import Path

path = 'pics'
Path(path).mkdir(parents=True, exist_ok=True)
# To get key: sign up for pexels https://www.pexels.com/join/
# Reguest key : https://www.pexels.com/api/
# - No need to set URL
# - Accept email send to you
# - Refresh API or see key here: https://www.pexels.com/api/new/
PEXELS_API_KEY = '--- INSERT YOUR API KEY HERE ---'
api = API(PEXELS_API_KEY)
query = 'person'
api.search(query)
# Get photo entries
photos = api.get_entries()
print("Search: ", query)
print("Total results: ", api.total_results)
MAX_PICS = 1000
print("Fetching max: ", MAX_PICS)
count = 0
while True:
    photos = api.get_entries()
    print(len(photos))
    if len(photos) == 0:
        break
    for photo in photos:
        # Print photographer
        print('Photographer: ', photo.photographer)
        # Print original size url
        print('Photo original size: ', photo.original)
        file = os.path.join(path, query + '-' + str(count).zfill(5) + '.' + photo.original.split('.')[-1])
        count += 1
        print(file)
        picture_request = requests.get(photo.original)
        if picture_request.status_code == 200:
            with open(file, 'wb') as f:
                f.write(picture_request.content)
        # This should be a function call to make a return
        if count >= MAX_PICS:
            break
    if count >= MAX_PICS:
        break
    if not api.has_next_page:
        print("Last page: ", api.page)
        break
        # Search next page
    api.search_next_page()

There is an upper limit of 1.000 photos in the above Python program, you can change that if you like. It is set to download photos that are shown if you query person. Feel free to change that.

It takes some time to download all the images and will take up some space.

Step 2: Extract the faces from the photos

Here OpenCV comes in. They have a trained model using the Haar Cascade Classifier. You need to install the OpenCV library by the following command.

pip install opencv-python

The trained model we use is part of the library, but is not loaded easily from the destination. Therefore we suggest you download it from here (it should be named: haarcascade_frontalface_default.xml) and add the it to the location you work from.

We want to use it to identify faces and extract them and save them in a library for later use.

import cv2
import numpy as np
import glob
import os
from pathlib import Path

def preprocess(box_width=12, box_height=16):
    path = "pics"
    output = "small-faces"
    Path(output).mkdir(parents=True, exist_ok=True)
    files = glob.glob(os.path.join(path, "*"))
    files.sort()
    face_cascade = cv2.CascadeClassifier("haarcascade_frontalface_default.xml")
    images = []
    cnt = 0
    for filename in files:
        print("Processing...", filename)
        frame = cv2.imread(filename)
        frame_gray = cv2.cvtColor(frame, cv2.COLOR_BGR2GRAY)
        frame_gray = cv2.equalizeHist(frame_gray)
        faces = face_cascade.detectMultiScale(frame_gray, scaleFactor=1.3, minNeighbors=10, minSize=(350, 350), flags=cv2.CASCADE_SCALE_IMAGE)
        for (x, y, w, h) in faces:
            roi = frame[y:y+h, x:x+w]
            img = cv2.resize(roi, (box_width, box_height))
            images.append(img)
            output_file_name = "face-" + str(cnt).zfill(5) + ".jpg"
            output_file_name = os.path.join(output, output_file_name)
            cv2.imwrite(output_file_name, img)
    return np.stack(images)

preprocess(box_width=12, box_height=16)

It will create a folder called small-faces with small images of the identified faces.

Notice, that the Haar Cascade Classifier is not perfect. It will miss a lot of faces and have false positives. It is a good idea to look manually though all the images and delete all false positives (images that are not having a face).

Step 3: Building our first mosaic photo

The approach to divide the photo into equal sized boxes. For each box to find the image (our faces), which fits the best as a replacement.

To improve performance of the process function we use Numba, which is a just-in-time compiler that is designed to optimize NumPy code in for-loops.

import cv2
import numpy as np
import glob
import os
from numba import jit

@jit(nopython=True)
def process(photo, images, box_width=24, box_height=32):
    height, width, _ = photo.shape
    for i in range(0, height, box_height):
        for j in range(0, width, box_width):
            roi = photo[i:i + box_height, j:j + box_width]
            best_match = np.inf
            best_match_index = 0
            for k in range(1, images.shape[0]):
                total_sum = np.sum(np.where(roi > images[k], roi - images[k], images[k] - roi))
                if total_sum < best_match:
                    best_match = total_sum
                    best_match_index = k
            photo[i:i + box_height, j:j + box_width] = images[best_match_index]
    return photo

def main():
    photo = cv2.imread("rune.jpg")
    box_width = 12
    box_height = 16
    height, width, _ = photo.shape
    # To make sure that it we can slice the photo in box-sizes
    width = (width//box_width) * box_width
    height = (height//box_height) * box_height
    photo = cv2.resize(photo, (width, height))
    # Load all the images of the faces
    images = load_images(box_width, box_height)
    # Create the mosaic
    mosaic = process(photo.copy(), images, box_width, box_height)
    cv2.imshow("Original", photo)
    cv2.imshow("Result", mosaic)
    cv2.waitKey(0)

main()

To test it we have used the photo of Rune.

This reuses the same images. This gives a decent result, but if you want to avoid the extreme patterns of reused images, you can change the code for that.

The above example has 606 small images. If you avoid reuse it runs out fast of possible images. This would require a bigger base or the result becomes questionable.

No reuse of face images to create the Photo Mosaic

The above photo mosaic is created on a downscaled size, but still it does not create a good result, if you do not reuse images. This would require a quite larger set of images to work from.

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Create a Line Drawing from Webcam Stream using OpenCV in Python

What will we cover in this tutorial?

How to convert a webcam stream into a black and white line drawing using OpenCV and Python. Also, how to adjust the parameters while running the live stream.

See result here.

The things you need to use

There are two things you need to use in order to get a good line drawing of your image.

  1. GaussianBlur to smooth out the image, as detecting lines is sensitive to noise.
  2. Canny that detects the lines.

The Gaussian blur is advised to use a 5×5 filter. The Canny then has to threshold parameters. To find the optimal values for your setting, we have inserted two trackbars where you can set them to any value as see the results.

You can read more about Canny Edge Detection here.

If you need to install OpenCV please read this tutorial.

The code is given below.

import cv2
import numpy as np
# Setup camera
cap = cv2.VideoCapture(0)
# Set a smaller resolution
cap.set(cv2.CAP_PROP_FRAME_WIDTH, 640)
cap.set(cv2.CAP_PROP_FRAME_HEIGHT, 480)

def nothing(x):
    pass

canny = "Canny"
cv2.namedWindow(canny)
cv2.createTrackbar('Threshold 1', canny, 0, 255, nothing)
cv2.createTrackbar('Threshold 2', canny, 0, 255, nothing)
while True:
    # Capture frame-by-frame
    _, frame = cap.read()
    frame = cv2.flip(frame, 1)
    t1 = cv2.getTrackbarPos('Threshold 1', canny)
    t2 = cv2.getTrackbarPos('Threshold 2', canny)
    gb = cv2.GaussianBlur(frame, (5, 5), 0)
    can = cv2.Canny(gb, t1, t2)
    cv2.imshow(canny, can)
    frame[np.where(can)] = 255
    cv2.imshow('WebCam', frame)
    if cv2.waitKey(1) == ord('q'):
        break
# When everything done, release the capture
cap.release()
cv2.destroyAllWindows()
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OpenCV + Python: Move Objects Around in a Live Webcam Stream Using Your Hands

What will we cover in this tutorial?

How do you detect movements in a webcam stream? Also, how do you insert objects in a live webcam stream? Further, how do you change the position of the object based on the movements?

We will learn all that in this tutorial. The end result can be seen in the video below.

The end result of this tutorial

Step 1: Understand the flow of webcam processing

A webcam stream is processed frame-by-frame.

Illustration: Webcam processing flow

As the above illustration shows, when the webcam captures the next frame, the actual processing often happens on a copy of the original frame. When all the updates and calculations are done, they are inserted in the original frame.

This is interesting. To extract information from the webcam frame we need to work with the frame and find the features we are looking for.

In our example, we need to find movement and based on that see if that movement is touching our object.

A simple flow without any processing would look like this.

import cv2

# Get the webcam (default webcam is 0)
cap = cv2.VideoCapture(0)
# If your webcam does not support 640 x 480, this will find another resolution
cap.set(cv2.CAP_PROP_FRAME_WIDTH, 640)
cap.set(cv2.CAP_PROP_FRAME_HEIGHT, 480)
# To detect movement (to get the background)
background_subtractor = cv2.createBackgroundSubtractorMOG2()
# This will create an object
obj = Object()
# Loop forever (or until break)
while True:
    # Read the a frame from webcam
    _, frame = cap.read()
    # Flip the frame
    frame = cv2.flip(frame, 1)
    # Show the frame in a window
    cv2.imshow('WebCam', frame)
    # Check if q has been pressed to quit
    if cv2.waitKey(1) == ord('q'):
        break
# When everything done, release the capture
cap.release()
cv2.destroyAllWindows()

The above code will create a direct stream from your webcam to a window.

Step 2: Insert a logo – do it with a class that we will extend later

Here we want to insert a logo in a fixed position in our webcam stream. This can be achieved be the following code. The main difference is the new object Object defined and created.

The object briefly explained

  • The object will represent the logo we want to insert.
  • It will keep the current position (which is static so far)
  • The logo itself.
  • The mask used to insert it later (when insert_object is called).
  • The constructor (__init__(…)) does the stuff only needed once. Read the logo (it assumes you have a file named logo.png in the same folder), resize it, creating a mask (by gray scaling and thresholding), setting the initial positions of the logo.

Before the while-loop the object obj is created. All that is needed at this stage is to insert the logo in each frame.

import cv2
import numpy as np

# Object class to insert logo
class Object:
    def __init__(self, start_x=100, start_y=100, size=50):
        self.logo_org = cv2.imread('logo.png')
        self.size = size
        self.logo = cv2.resize(self.logo_org, (size, size))
        img2gray = cv2.cvtColor(self.logo, cv2.COLOR_BGR2GRAY)
        _, logo_mask = cv2.threshold(img2gray, 1, 255, cv2.THRESH_BINARY)
        self.logo_mask = logo_mask
        self.x = start_x
        self.y = start_y
    def insert_object(self, frame):
        roi = frame[self.y:self.y + self.size, self.x:self.x + self.size]
        roi[np.where(self.logo_mask)] = 0
        roi += self.logo

# Get the webcam (default webcam is 0)
cap = cv2.VideoCapture(0)
# If your webcam does not support 640 x 480, this will find another resolution
cap.set(cv2.CAP_PROP_FRAME_WIDTH, 640)
cap.set(cv2.CAP_PROP_FRAME_HEIGHT, 480)
# This will create an object
obj = Object()
# Loop forever (or until break)
while True:
    # Read the a frame from webcam
    _, frame = cap.read()
    # Flip the frame
    frame = cv2.flip(frame, 1)
    # Insert the object into the frame
    obj.insert_object(frame)
    # Show the frame in a window
    cv2.imshow('WebCam', frame)
    # Check if q has been pressed to quit
    if cv2.waitKey(1) == ord('q'):
        break
# When everything done, release the capture
cap.release()
cv2.destroyAllWindows()

This will result in the following output (when you put me in front of the webcam – that said, if you do it, expect that you sit in the picture and not me (just want to avoid any uncomfortable surprises for you when you show up in the window)).

The logo at a fixed position.

For more details on how to insert a logo in a live webcam stream, you can read this tutorial.

Step 3: Detect movement in the frame

Detecting movement is not a simple task. Depending on your needs, it can be solved quite simple. In this tutorial we only need to detect simple movement. That is, if you are in the frame and sit still, we do not care to detect it. We only care to detect the actual movement.

We can solve that problem by using the library function createBackgroundSubtractorMOG2(), which can “remove” the background from your frame. It is far from a perfect solution, but it is sufficient for what we want to achieve.

As we only want to see if there is movement or not, and not how much the difference is from previous detected background, we will use a threshold function to make the image black and white based on that. We set the threshold quite high, as it will also remove noise from the image.

It might happen that in your settings (lightening etc.) you need to adjust that value. See the comments in the code how to do that.

import cv2
import numpy as np

# Object class to insert logo
class Object:
    def __init__(self, start_x=100, start_y=100, size=50):
        self.logo_org = cv2.imread('logo.png')
        self.size = size
        self.logo = cv2.resize(self.logo_org, (size, size))
        img2gray = cv2.cvtColor(self.logo, cv2.COLOR_BGR2GRAY)
        _, logo_mask = cv2.threshold(img2gray, 1, 255, cv2.THRESH_BINARY)
        self.logo_mask = logo_mask
        self.x = start_x
        self.y = start_y
    def insert_object(self, frame):
        roi = frame[self.y:self.y + self.size, self.x:self.x + self.size]
        roi[np.where(self.logo_mask)] = 0
        roi += self.logo

# Get the webcam (default webcam is 0)
cap = cv2.VideoCapture(0)
# If your webcam does not support 640 x 480, this will find another resolution
cap.set(cv2.CAP_PROP_FRAME_WIDTH, 640)
cap.set(cv2.CAP_PROP_FRAME_HEIGHT, 480)
# To detect movement (to get the background)
background_subtractor = cv2.createBackgroundSubtractorMOG2()
# This will create an object
obj = Object()
# Loop forever (or until break)
while True:
    # Read the a frame from webcam
    _, frame = cap.read()
    # Flip the frame
    frame = cv2.flip(frame, 1)
    # Get the foreground mask (it is gray scale)
    fg_mask = background_subtractor.apply(frame)
    # Convert the gray scale to black and white with a threshold
    # Change the 250 threshold fitting your webcam and needs
    # - Setting it lower will make it more sensitive (also to noise)
    _, fg_mask = cv2.threshold(fg_mask, 250, 255, cv2.THRESH_BINARY)
    # Insert the object into the frame
    obj.insert_object(frame)
    # Show the frame in a window
    cv2.imshow('WebCam', frame)
    # To see the foreground mask
    cv2.imshow('fg_mask', fg_mask)
    # Check if q has been pressed to quit
    if cv2.waitKey(1) == ord('q'):
        break
# When everything done, release the capture
cap.release()
cv2.destroyAllWindows()

This results in the following output.

Output – again, don’t expect to see me when you run this example on your computer

As you see, it does a decent job to detect movement. Sometimes it happens that you create a shadow after your movements. Hence, it is not perfect.

Step 4: Detecting movement where the object is and move it accordingly

This is the tricky part. But let’s break it down simple.

  • We need to detect if the mask, we created in previous step, is overlapping with the object (logo).
  • If so, we want to move the object (logo).

That is what we want to achieve.

How do we do that?

  • Detect if there is an overlap by using the same mask we create for the logo and see if it overlaps with any points on the mask of the movement.
  • If so, we move the object by choosing a random movement. Measure how much overlap is. Then choose another random movement. See if the overlap is less.
  • Continue this a few times and chose the random movement with the least overlap.

This turns out to by chance to move away from the overlapping areas. This is the power of introducing some randomness, which simplifies the algorithm a lot.

A more precise approach would be to calculate in which direction the least mask is close to the object (logo). This becomes quite complicated and needs a lot of calculations. Hence, we chose to have this simple approach, which has both a speed element and direction element that works fairly well.

All we need to do, is to add a update_position function to our class and call it before we insert the logo.

import cv2
import numpy as np

# Object class to insert logo
class Object:
    def __init__(self, start_x=100, start_y=100, size=50):
        self.logo_org = cv2.imread('logo.png')
        self.size = size
        self.logo = cv2.resize(self.logo_org, (size, size))
        img2gray = cv2.cvtColor(self.logo, cv2.COLOR_BGR2GRAY)
        _, logo_mask = cv2.threshold(img2gray, 1, 255, cv2.THRESH_BINARY)
        self.logo_mask = logo_mask
        self.x = start_x
        self.y = start_y
        self.on_mask = False
    def insert_object(self, frame):
        roi = frame[self.y:self.y + self.size, self.x:self.x + self.size]
        roi[np.where(self.logo_mask)] = 0
        roi += self.logo
    def update_position(self, mask):
        height, width = mask.shape
        # Check if object is overlapping with moving parts
        roi = mask[self.y:self.y + self.size, self.x:self.x + self.size]
        check = np.any(roi[np.where(self.logo_mask)])
        # If object has moving parts, then find new position
        if check:
            # To save the best possible movement
            best_delta_x = 0
            best_delta_y = 0
            best_fit = np.inf
            # Try 8 different positions
            for _ in range(8):
                # Pick a random position
                delta_x = np.random.randint(-15, 15)
                delta_y = np.random.randint(-15, 15)
                # Ensure we are inside the frame, if outside, skip and continue
                if self.y + self.size + delta_y > height or self.y + delta_y < 0 or \
                        self.x + self.size + delta_x > width or self.x + delta_x < 0:
                    continue
                # Calculate how much overlap
                roi = mask[self.y + delta_y:self.y + delta_y + self.size, self.x + delta_x:self.x + delta_x + self.size]
                check = np.count_nonzero(roi[np.where(self.logo_mask)])
                # If perfect fit (no overlap), just return
                if check == 0:
                    self.x += delta_x
                    self.y += delta_y
                    return
                # If a better fit found, save it
                elif check < best_fit:
                    best_fit = check
                    best_delta_x = delta_x
                    best_delta_y = delta_y
            # After for-loop, update to best fit (if any found)
            if best_fit < np.inf:
                self.x += best_delta_x
                self.y += best_delta_y
                return

# Get the webcam (default webcam is 0)
cap = cv2.VideoCapture(0)
# If your webcam does not support 640 x 480, this will find another resolution
cap.set(cv2.CAP_PROP_FRAME_WIDTH, 640)
cap.set(cv2.CAP_PROP_FRAME_HEIGHT, 480)
# To detect movement (to get the background)
background_subtractor = cv2.createBackgroundSubtractorMOG2()
# This will create an object
obj = Object()
# Loop forever (or until break)
while True:
    # Read the a frame from webcam
    _, frame = cap.read()
    # Flip the frame
    frame = cv2.flip(frame, 1)
    # Get the foreground mask (it is gray scale)
    fg_mask = background_subtractor.apply(frame)
    # Convert the gray scale to black and white with a threshold
    # Change the 250 threshold fitting your webcam and needs
    # - Setting it lower will make it more sensitive (also to noise)
    _, fg_mask = cv2.threshold(fg_mask, 250, 255, cv2.THRESH_BINARY)
    # Find a new position for object (logo)
    # - fg_mask contains all moving parts
    # - updated position will be the one with least moving parts
    obj.update_position(fg_mask)
    # Insert the object into the frame
    obj.insert_object(frame)
    # Show the frame in a window
    cv2.imshow('WebCam', frame)
    # To see the fg_mask uncomment the line below
    # cv2.imshow('fg_mask', fg_mask)
    # Check if q has been pressed to quit
    if cv2.waitKey(1) == ord('q'):
        break
# When everything done, release the capture
cap.release()
cv2.destroyAllWindows()

Step 5: Test it

Well, this is the fun part. See a live demo in the video below.

The final result

What is next step?

I would be happy to hear any suggestions from you. I see a lot of potential improvements, but the conceptual idea is explained and showed in this tutorial.