Face detection has been possible for some time on iOS thanks to libraries like OpenCV. The CIDetector class introduced in iOS 5 made it a standard feature. Since iOS 7 it can also detect smiles and eye blinks 
With iOS 6, AV Foundation gained AVCaptureMetadataOutput, allowing face detection to be included in the capture pipeline (in iOS 7 it also supports barcode scanning).
Here’s how you could use that to perform face masking on live video:
First thing to do is get the capture session set up:
AVCaptureSession *captureSession = [AVCaptureSession new];
[captureSession beginConfiguration];
NSError *error;
// Input device
AVCaptureDevice *captureDevice = [self frontOrDefaultCamera];
AVCaptureDeviceInput *deviceInput = [AVCaptureDeviceInput deviceInputWithDevice:captureDevice error:&error];
if ( [captureSession canAddInput:deviceInput] )
{
[captureSession addInput:deviceInput];
}
if ( [captureSession canSetSessionPreset:AVCaptureSessionPresetHigh] )
{
captureSession.sessionPreset = AVCaptureSessionPresetHigh;
}
// Video data output
AVCaptureVideoDataOutput *videoDataOutput = [self createVideoDataOutput];
if ( [captureSession canAddOutput:videoDataOutput] )
{
[captureSession addOutput:videoDataOutput];
AVCaptureConnection *connection = videoDataOutput.connections[ 0 ];
connection.videoOrientation = AVCaptureVideoOrientationPortrait;
}
// Metadata output
AVCaptureMetadataOutput *metadataOutput = [self createMetadataOutput];
if ( [captureSession canAddOutput:metadataOutput] )
{
[captureSession addOutput:metadataOutput];
metadataOutput.metadataObjectTypes = [self metadataOutput:metadataOutput allowedObjectTypes:self.faceMetadataObjectTypes];
}
// Done
[captureSession commitConfiguration];
dispatch_async( _serialQueue,
^{
[captureSession startRunning];
});
_captureSession = captureSession;
All we’re doing here is creating an AVCaptureSesstion, adding an input device, adding an AVCaptureVideoDataOutput (so we can work with the frame buffer) and an AVCaptureMetadataOutput (to tell us about faces in the frame).
A few helper methods called during the setup:
- (AVCaptureMetadataOutput *)createMetadataOutput
{
AVCaptureMetadataOutput *metadataOutput = [AVCaptureMetadataOutput new];
[metadataOutput setMetadataObjectsDelegate:self queue:_serialQueue];
return metadataOutput;
}
- (NSArray *)metadataOutput:(AVCaptureMetadataOutput *)metadataOutput
allowedObjectTypes:(NSArray *)objectTypes
{
NSSet *available = [NSSet setWithArray:metadataOutput.availableMetadataObjectTypes];
[available intersectsSet:[NSSet setWithArray:objectTypes]];
return [available allObjects];
}
- (NSArray *)faceMetadataObjectTypes
{
return @
[
AVMetadataObjectTypeFace
];
}
- (AVCaptureVideoDataOutput *)createVideoDataOutput
{
AVCaptureVideoDataOutput *videoDataOutput = [AVCaptureVideoDataOutput new];
[videoDataOutput setSampleBufferDelegate:self queue:_serialQueue];
return videoDataOutput;
}
- (AVCaptureDevice *)frontOrDefaultCamera
{
NSArray *devices = [AVCaptureDevice devicesWithMediaType:AVMediaTypeVideo];
for ( AVCaptureDevice *device in devices )
{
if ( device.position == AVCaptureDevicePositionFront )
{
return device;
}
}
return [AVCaptureDevice defaultDeviceWithMediaType:AVMediaTypeVideo];
}
We’ve told AVCaptureMetadataOutput and AVCaptureVideoDataOutput to call us back (when we set “self” as the delegate) and to do it on a global queue called _serialQueue. This is just to avoid any concurrency issues if the delegates are called from separate threads. Here’s how we handle new metadata:
- (void)captureOutput:(AVCaptureOutput *)captureOutput didOutputMetadataObjects:(NSArray *)metadataObjects fromConnection:(AVCaptureConnection *)connection
{
_facesMetadata = metadataObjects;
}
Once we get a video frame, we’ll make a CIImage, mask the face with a CIFilter, then render the frame to an OpenGL ES 2.0 context:
- (void)captureOutput:(AVCaptureOutput *)captureOutput didOutputSampleBuffer:(CMSampleBufferRef)sampleBuffer fromConnection:(AVCaptureConnection *)connection
{
CVPixelBufferRef pixelBuffer = CMSampleBufferGetImageBuffer( sampleBuffer );
if ( pixelBuffer )
{
CFDictionaryRef attachments = CMCopyDictionaryOfAttachments( kCFAllocatorDefault, sampleBuffer, kCMAttachmentMode_ShouldPropagate );
CIImage *ciImage = [[CIImage alloc] initWithCVPixelBuffer:pixelBuffer options:(__bridge NSDictionary *)attachments];
if ( attachments ) CFRelease( attachments );
CGRect extent = ciImage.extent;
_filter.inputImage = ciImage;
_filter.inputFacesMetadata = _facesMetadata;
CIImage *output = _filter.outputImage;
_filter.inputImage = nil;
_filter.inputFacesMetadata = nil;
dispatch_async( dispatch_get_main_queue(),
^{
UIView *view = self.view;
CGRect bounds = view.bounds;
CGFloat scale = view.contentScaleFactor;
CGFloat extentFitWidth = extent.size.height / ( bounds.size.height / bounds.size.width );
CGRect extentFit = CGRectMake( ( extent.size.width - extentFitWidth ) / 2, 0, extentFitWidth, extent.size.height );
CGRect scaledBounds = CGRectMake( bounds.origin.x * scale, bounds.origin.y * scale, bounds.size.width * scale, bounds.size.height * scale );
[_ciContext drawImage:output inRect:scaledBounds fromRect:extentFit];
[_eaglContext presentRenderbuffer:GL_RENDERBUFFER];
[(GLKView *)self.view display];
});
}
}
The _filter is an instance of CJCAnonymousFacesFilter. It’s a simple CIFilter that creates a mask from the faces metadata and a pixelated version of the image, then blends the result into the original image:
// Create a pixellated version of the image
[self.anonymize setValue:inputImage forKey:kCIInputImageKey];
CIImage *maskImage = self.maskImage;
CIImage *outputImage = nil;
if ( maskImage )
{
// Blend the pixellated image, mask and original image
[self.blend setValue:_anonymize.outputImage forKey:kCIInputImageKey];
[_blend setValue:inputImage forKey:kCIInputBackgroundImageKey];
[_blend setValue:self.maskImage forKey:kCIInputMaskImageKey];
outputImage = _blend.outputImage;
[_blend setValue:nil forKey:kCIInputImageKey];
[_blend setValue:nil forKey:kCIInputBackgroundImageKey];
[_blend setValue:nil forKey:kCIInputMaskImageKey];
}
else
{
outputImage = _anonymize.outputImage;
}
[_anonymize setValue:nil forKey:kCIInputImageKey];
You can find all the relevant code as gists on github:
– CJCViewController.h
– CJCViewController.m
– CJCAnonymousFacesFilter.h
– CJCAnonymousFacesFilter.m
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