Introduction

In the previous chapters, we learned how to use the OpenCV library to carry out basic image and video processing. We also had a look at contour detection in the previous chapter. Now, it's time to take it up a notch and focus on faces – one of the most interesting parts of the human body for computer vision engineers.

Face processing is a hot topic in artificial intelligence because a lot of information can be automatically extracted from faces using computer vision algorithms. The face plays an important role in visual communication because a great deal of nonverbal information, such as identity, intent, and emotion, can be extracted from human faces. This makes it important for you, as a computer vision enthusiast, to understand how to detect and track faces in images and videos and carry out various kinds of filtering operations, for instance, adding sunglasses filters, skin smoothing, and many more, to come up with interesting and significant results...