Face detection tutorial

Objectives

In this sample, you'll use the Google Vision API to detect faces in an image. To prove to yourself that the faces were detected correctly, you'll then use that data to draw a box around each face.

Costs

In this document, you use the following billable components of Google Cloud:

• Cloud Vision

To generate a cost estimate based on your projected usage, use the pricing calculator.

Before you begin

Sign in to your Google Cloud account. If you're new to Google Cloud, create an account to evaluate how our products perform in real-world scenarios. New customers also get $300 in free credits to run, test, and deploy workloads.

In the Google Cloud console, on the project selector page, select or create a Google Cloud project.

Roles required to select or create a project

• Select a project: Selecting a project doesn't require a specific IAM role—you can select any project that you've been granted a role on.
• Create a project: To create a project, you need the Project Creator role (roles/resourcemanager.projectCreator), which contains the resourcemanager.projects.create permission. Learn how to grant roles.

Go to project selector

Verify that billing is enabled for your Google Cloud project.

Enable the Google Cloud Vision API.

Roles required to enable APIs

To enable APIs, you need the serviceusage.services.enable permission. If you created the project, then you likely already have this permission through the Owner role (roles/owner). Otherwise, you can get this permission through the Service Usage Admin role (roles/serviceusage.serviceUsageAdmin). Learn how to grant roles.

Enable the API

In the Google Cloud console, on the project selector page, select or create a Google Cloud project.

Roles required to select or create a project

• Select a project: Selecting a project doesn't require a specific IAM role—you can select any project that you've been granted a role on.
• Create a project: To create a project, you need the Project Creator role (roles/resourcemanager.projectCreator), which contains the resourcemanager.projects.create permission. Learn how to grant roles.

Go to project selector

Verify that billing is enabled for your Google Cloud project.

Enable the Google Cloud Vision API.

Roles required to enable APIs

To enable APIs, you need the serviceusage.services.enable permission. If you created the project, then you likely already have this permission through the Owner role (roles/owner). Otherwise, you can get this permission through the Service Usage Admin role (roles/serviceusage.serviceUsageAdmin). Learn how to grant roles.

Enable the API

1. Set up your environment for using Application Default Credentials.
2. Set up language-specific tasks and tools:

   C#

   • Install the Google Client Library
   • Install Visual Studio 2012/2015.

   Java

   • Install Java.
   • API reference.

   • Download and install the Apache Maven build system. Maven will ensure that the Google API Client Library and the Vision API client libraries are installed when the project is built, because we have included them in the pom.xml.

     <dependency>
       <groupId>com.google.apis</groupId>
       <artifactId>google-api-services-vision</artifactId>
       <version>v1-rev20231219-2.0.0</version>
     </dependency>
     <dependency>
       <groupId>com.google.auth</groupId>
       <artifactId>google-auth-library-oauth2-http</artifactId>
     </dependency>
     <dependency>
       <groupId>com.google.guava</groupId>
       <artifactId>guava</artifactId>
     </dependency>
     <dependency>
       <groupId>com.google.http-client</groupId>
       <artifactId>google-http-client-jackson2</artifactId>
     </dependency>

     ...

   Node.js

   • Install the Google Client Library
   • Install node.js.
   • API reference.

   • Install npm and node-canvas. The sample code includes a package.json to install all dependencies using the command: npm install. Note that node-canvas has additional dependencies you may need to install - see the node-canvas installation doc for more information.

     {
       "name": "nodejs-docs-samples-vision",
       "private": true,
       "license": "Apache-2.0",
       "author": "Google LLC",
       "engines": {
         "node": ">=20.0.0"
       },
       "files": [
         "*.js"
       ],
       "scripts": {
         "test": "c8 mocha -p -j 2 system-test --timeout 600000"
       },
       "dependencies": {
         "@google-cloud/vision": "^5.0.0",
         "natural": "^8.0.0",
         "pureimage": "^0.3.17",
         "redis": "^4.7.1",
         "yargs": "^17.7.1"
       },
       "devDependencies": {
         "@google-cloud/storage": "^8.0.0",
         "@types/uuid": "^10.0.0",
         "@types/yargs": "^17.0.22",
         "c8": "^12.0.0",
         "chai": "^6.0.0",
         "mocha": "^10.2.0",
         "uuid":