How to use the offline cmd-based FaceRec system:

If you want to use the command-line mode for offline facerec such as for testing, here are the instructions: 1. First, you need some face images. You can find many face databases at the Essex page http://peipa.essex.ac.uk/benchmark/databases/index.html. I used "ORL / AT&T: The Database of Faces": Cambridge_FaceDB.zip (3.7MB). 2. List the training and test face images you want to use into text files. If you downloaded the ORL database, you can use my sample text files: facerecExample_ORL.zip (1kB). To use these input files exactly as provided, unzip the facerecExample_ORL.zip file in your folder with OnlineFaceRec.exe and then unzip the ORL face database there (eg: 'Cambridge_DB\s1\1.pgm'). 3. To run the learning phase of eigenface, enter in the command prompt: OnlineFaceRec train lower2.txt That will create a database file "facedata.xml" with just 2 faces each from 10 people (a total of 20 faces). It will also generate "out_averageImage.bmp" and "out_eigenfaces.bmp" for you to look at. 4. To run the recognition phase, enter: OnlineFaceRec test upper6.txt (That will test the database with 6 faces each from 10 people (a total of 60 faces). It should give a surprisingly high recognition rate of 95% correct, from just 2 photos of each person! You can try other combinations, such as "OnlineFaceRec train all10.txt" and "OnlineFaceRec test all10.txt", to get even higher accuracy. Just remember that these photos are already processed, and from a very fixed lab environment. If you try this with images from real-world conditions, you should expect just 40-80% correct!