Face Detection: Scope of Applicability

[aboba]

Currently the API in PR 78 proposes to provide hw acceleration for Face Detection based on camera driver support. Tying support for accelerated Face Detection to support in a camera driver seems unlikely to provide wide coverage, since it is likely to only be supported on new camera models. Acceleration using more commonly available hardware (such as GPUs) will be likely to have wider coverage, which is why ML development tools such as tensorflow.js utilize this technique. It is also why GPU acceleration is mentioned in WebRTC-NV Uses Cases Section 3.6.

Face Detection APIs that do not achieve wide coverage will be frustrating for applications that do not wish to develop their own face detection models. These applications will either need to operate without face detection support if it is not available, or they will need to include their own face detection capabilities - which will lessen the need for the proposed APIs.

Those applications that include their own face detection models will also probably choose to forgo the proposed APIs, choosing instead to leverage GPU-based acceleration approaches supported by Web ML platforms such as Tensorflow.js.

References: https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-webrtc/2023Jan/0047.html