An analysis of the Viola-Jones face detection algorithm
Open accessAbstract
In this article, we decipher the Viola-Jones algorithm, the first ever real-time face detection system. There are three ingredients working in concert to enable a fast and accurate detection: the integral image for feature computation, Adaboost for feature selection and an attentional cascade for efficient computational resource allocation. Here we propose a complete algorithmic description, a learning code and a learned face detector that can be applied to any color image. Since the Viola-Jones algorithm typically gives multiple detections, a post-processing step is also proposed to reduce detection redundancy using a robustness argument.
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The Viola-Jones algorithm is robust and effective when applied in general face detection datasets and even in real-world scenarios.
“Wang (2014) discuss the Viola-Jones algorithm, and shows that it is robust and effective when applied in general face detection datasets, and even in real-world scenarios.”
From Multimodal emotional state recognition using sequence-dependent deep hierarchical features (2015) · cites this paper as Wang (2014)
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- Authors
- Wang, Y.-Q.
- Venue
- Image Processing On Line
- Publisher
- Image Processing On Line
- Published
- 2014-06-26
- Volume
- 4
- Pages
- 128-148
- ISSN
- 2105-1232 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W2087281575
- Cited by
- 354
- References
- 10
- Citations by year
- 2026: 11 · 2025: 31 · 2024: 31 · 2023: 28 · 2022: 40 · 2021: 45 · 2020: 39 · 2019: 32 · 2018: 30 · 2017: 31 · 2016: 16 · 2015: 17 · 2014: 2 · 2013: 1
- FWCI
- 19.67
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- diamond
- doi.org
- Licence
- cc-by-sa
- Locations
- Image Processing On Line (publishedVersion, cc-by-sa)
- DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
- Funders
- Office of Naval Research (N00014-97-1-0839, N00014)
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition › Face recognition and analysis
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition › Face and Expression Recognition
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Face Recognition and Perception
- Keywords
- Viola-Jones face detection, integral image, AdaBoost, cascade classifier, real-time face detection, feature selection, post-processing, color images
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