
Building a face-tracking robot with Python in an afternoon - jnoller
http://blog.aicookbook.com/2010/06/building-a-face-tracking-robot-headroid1-with-python-in-an-afternoon/
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jgershen
Terrific stuff, you can do a lot with OpenCV right out of the box. The Python
bindings are pretty poorly documented, though (they change a lot). As much as
I'd rather write Python than C++, if you're not already familiar with OpenCV
it can be a lot easier to learn with the C++ version. There's a great
introduction and API rooted here:
<http://opencv.willowgarage.com/documentation/cpp/index.html>

Shameless self-promotion: If you're interested in face / eye tracking, email
me or keep tabs on <http://www.gazehawk.com>.

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alexkiwi
That is seriously awesome. Reminds me of the cool stuff that used to be on
hackaday

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rane
Reading how people come up with great stuff in matter of hours always makes me
feel miserable.

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hvs
Just try to keep in mind that when someone says "I built X in just Y hours"
they tend to omit the "and have spent Z years developing the skill set
required to do that."

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IanOzsvald
Headroid's author here - yes, the background skills took a fair while to
acquire. As a kid (I'm 34 now) my late father (hardcore electrical engineer)
used to bring home electronics junk so I could build robots aged 10
(solder+Commodore 64 joystick port+Lego+Basic). Then I got bored of robotics
for a long time. For 11 yrs I've worked as an A.I. consultant after an AI
degree/MSc, recently I wanted to hack, play and build fun stuff so I setup the
AICookbook.com with Google Group and I'm posting my play-time projects.
Headroid is one of them, there's also OCR (see the Plaque entry on the blog),
NLP, recommendation engines, data mining, game play (auto Zork solver anyone?)
and more to be done. I'm also a part of Brighton's HackerSpace
(BuildBrighton.com) which is where I met BotBuilder who built the servo board
and frame. All are welcome to come join the fun :-)

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nitrogen
This link was valuable just for the introduction to OpenCV.

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cmelbye
Yes, but is it racist?

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t4DT3tQqgRM>

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MarkBook
Computers are born color blind. They have to be taught to discriminate

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mey
You should watch the video he links rather then assuming something. HP
developed some video drivers for face tracking that didn't handle the "edge-
case" of a person with black/dark skin.

