A Japanese automation company Omron announced this week that it developed a technology that can estimate facial expressions in real time. This revolutionary system is capable of estimating seven different facial expressions - happiness, surprise, fear, disgust, anger, sadness, and neutral.
The company has added this new piece of technology to its already successful "OKAO Vision" face detection system which is used in the auto-focus function of digital cameras and smart phones and has a wide set of capabilities like facial recognition and smile degree detection.
The new technology combines the company's 3D model-fitting technology and its statistical classification method to estimate facial expressions based on the relative position of all facial parts. The company also claims that the technology is capable of high-speed estimation that requires very little system memory. Since the process requires only a single facial image, real-time estimation of facial expressions is possible using not only video imagery but also still images.
The technology would be ideal for application in image search engines and interactive games and software that would require users or players to make facial expressions.
This new tool would require approximately 10 milliseconds to make an estimation using a snapdragon processor that is seen in many popular tablets and smart book devices. It is compatible with operating systems like Windows XP/7, Android OS, IOS, etc.
Omron has also prescribed the technology for application in robotics. The software can help robots estimate facial expressions and respond to humans accordingly. It can ask a child to calm down when it estimates an expression of fear on his face.
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