Camshift is OpenCV's face tracking algorithm. There's currently no simple C-language example in the OpenCV samples directory for implementing Camshift. The implementation in the camshiftdemo program is intertwined with user-interace code that makes is fairly difficult to adapt to other purposes unless one is already very familiar with Camshift.

There's a C++ wrapper class in cvaux.hpp but, this also is somewhat complex, with many interfaces. And of course, it's only available through C++.

This Simple Camshift Wrapper is provided here to make Camshift more accessible to the casual, or beginning, user. It provides a minimal C-language interface with four main methods:

• createTracker(): pre-allocates internal data structures
• releaseTracker(): releases Camshift resources
• startTracking(): initiates tracking from an image plus a rectangular region
• track(): tracks the object in this region from frame to frame using Camshift

There are also two methods for setting the parameters smin and vmin:

• setVmin()
• setSmin()

The example program, Track Faces, uses the Simple Camshift Wrapper in a program that detects a face in live video and automatically begins tracking it.

Download Camshift Wrapper

Optional Patches. These were kindly contributed by Stefanie Tellex. (See the readme for a description.)