Polar Rose Searches the Web of Photos

Polar Rose Logo

Polar Rose is a Web application that claims to distinctly recognize a face in photos almost like how a human being recognizes a face that it sees. In short, face recognition not in the sense that those Fuji cameras recognize faces to focus on, but face recognition in the sense of “this is Bill’s face, not Jim’s face.” This amazing technology will go on an open beta trial starting in the first quarter of 2007.

With the Polar Rose technology, it will now be possible to automatically search for and recognize faces on a consistent basis similar to the way people do – by using the visual cues of the photo as opposed to nearby text analysis. It works by creating a 3D model from a single 2D image of a face and improves photo matching by compensating for variations in lighting, facial emotions and pose.

But first, the technology has to be trained, according to Polar Rose. Users will help train the photo search engine by tagging names of faces in a photo or verifying the data generated by it. “Polar Rose relies on a combination of our unique face recognition algorithms and the collective intelligence of our users,” the company said.

Polar Rose will be available as a free Web browser plug-in and is expected to enhance the experience of browsing and searching for photos of people on the Internet.

[Via: ImagingResource.com]

Published by Chris Malinao

Chris teaches Lightroom as workflow software to photography students at the FPPF, Federation of Philippine Photographers Foundation. He also teaches smartphone photography.