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title: "Building a Facial Recognition System with Qdrant"
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draft: false
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short_description: "Combine AI, FaceNet, and Qdrant to build a cool app."
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description: "Build an AI app that uses facial recognition embeddings & vector search to match users with their celebrity look-alikes."
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preview_image: /blog/facial-recognition/social_preview.png
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social_preview_image: /blog/facial-recognition/social_preview.png
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date: 2024-12-03T00:00:00-08:00
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author: David Myriel
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featured: false
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tags:
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- vector search
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- embeddings
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- facial recognition
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- Qdrant
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- Streamlit
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- ZenML
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- data visualization
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---
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# The Twin Celebrity App
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In the era of personalization, combining cutting-edge technology with fun can create engaging applications that resonate with users. One such project is the [**Twin Celebrity app**](https://github.com/neural-maze/vector-twin), a tool that matches users with their celebrity look-alikes using facial recognition embeddings and [**vector search**](/advanced-search/) powered by Qdrant. This blog post dives into the architecture, tools, and practical advice for developers who want to build this app—or something similar.
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The [**Twin Celebrity app**](https://github.com/neural-maze/vector-twin) identifies which celebrity a user resembles by analyzing a selfie. The app utilizes:
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- **Face recognition embeddings**: Generated by a ResNet-based **FaceNet** model.
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- **Vector similarity search**: Powered by Qdrant to find the closest match.
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- **ZenML**: For orchestrating data pipelines.
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- **Streamlit**: As the front-end interface.
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> This project not only demonstrates the capabilities of modern vector databases but also serves as an exciting introduction to embedding-based applications.
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---
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## Learn From the App's Creator
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We interviewed the engineer behind this project, [**Miguel Otero Pedrido**](https://www.linkedin.com/in/migueloteropedrido/), who is also the founder of [**The Neural Maze**](https://www.youtube.com/@TheNeuralMaze). Miguel explains in detail how he put the app together, as well as his choice of tools.
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<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/UJ2jTEBae3A?si=m9sHtiXTY4n0OsB2" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>
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___
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## Application Architecture
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The app is divided into two phases - **Offline Phase**, where the celebrity images are vectorized and the **Online Phase**, which carries out a live [**similarity search**]().
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---
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**Offline Phase**
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The first step is dataset preparation. Celebrity images are fetched from **HuggingFace’s dataset library** to serve as the foundation for embeddings.
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Next - [**MTCNN**](https://github.com/ipazc/mtcnn#) aligns celebrities faces within images.
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Then, a pre-trained [**FaceNet**](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FaceNet) model is used to generate 512-dimensional embeddings for each image. This ensures consistent and high-quality representation of facial features.
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Finally, these embeddings, along with metadata, are stored in [**Qdrant Cloud**](/cloud/). This enables efficient retrieval and management of the data for later use.
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---
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**Online Phase**
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In the online phase, user interaction begins with a **Streamlit app**. The app captures a selfie and converts it into an embedding using the same FaceNet model.
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The generated embedding is then queried against Qdrant, which retrieves the top matches based on similarity.
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Finally, the results are displayed in an intuitive interface, showing the user their **closest celebrity match** and making the interaction engaging and seamless.
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---
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## How to Build the App
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### 1. Set Up the Offline Pipeline
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Using ZenML, the pipeline consists of:
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- **Data Loading**: Fetch images and labels (e.g., "Brad Pitt") from Hugging Face.
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- **Sampling**: Reduce dataset size for faster processing, selecting around 3,000 images.
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- **Embedding Generation**: Convert images into embeddings using MTCNN for face detection and FaceNet for embedding creation.
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- **Storage in Qdrant**: Save embeddings into a collection named `celebrities`.
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### 2. Create the Online Application
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The Streamlit app handles:
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- **Image Capture**: Takes a selfie through a webcam or uploaded file.
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- **Embedding Querying**: Sends the embedding to Qdrant, retrieves the top matches, and visualizes the similarity.
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### 3. Deployment Options
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- Deploy the app on platforms like **Google Cloud**, **AWS**, or **Azure**. Setting up CI/CD pipelines can streamline updates and deployments.
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- The application can be containerized using **Docker**. For hosting, **Google Cloud Run** is an excellent choice, as it efficiently manages containerized applications without requiring extensive infrastructure management.
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- The deployment process is streamlined further with CI/CD pipelines, such as those provided by **Cloud Build or GitHub Actions**, which automate the steps for building, testing, and deploying updates.
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### 4. Test the Quality of Your Embeddings
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You can always use [**Qdrant’s visualization tools**](/documentation/web-ui/) to refine accuracy and ensure clusters align with expectations.
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If your data is properly embedded, then the visualization tool will appropriately cluster celebrity images into groups.
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---
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## Key Tools and Why They Shine
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Qdrant stands out as a high-performance [**vector database**](/qdrant-vector-database/) built in Rust, known for its reliability and speed. Its advanced features, such as [**vector visualization**](/documentation/web-ui/) and efficient [**querying**](/documentation/concepts/search/), make it a go-to choice for developers working on embedding-based projects. These tools simplify debugging and refinement, enabling developers to gain deeper insights into their data and application behavior.
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**ZenML** simplifies pipeline creation with a modular, cloud-agnostic framework that ensures clean, scalable, and portable code, ideal for cross-platform workflows.
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**FaceNet** provides lightweight, pre-trained facial embeddings, balancing accuracy and efficiency, making it perfect for tasks like the Twin Celebrity app.
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**MTCNN** ensures consistent face alignment, making the embeddings more reliable.
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**Streamlit** streamlines UI development, enabling rapid prototyping with minimal effort, allowing developers to focus on core functionalities.
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---
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## Lessons and Takeaways
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Scalability poses challenges when working with large datasets, such as 20,000+ images. Optimizations like using [**quantization techniques**](/documentation/guides/quantization/) to reduce memory usage or precomputing average embeddings for clusters can significantly minimize storage and computational costs. These strategies ensure the system remains performant as the dataset grows.
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The potential real-world applications of this technology extend far beyond entertainment. Similar systems can be used in security applications for embedding-based facial recognition to secure access to buildings or devices.
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In **healthcare**, they can assist in analyzing features such as moles or skin textures. In **retail**, they enable personalized recommendations based on user photos, demonstrating the versatility of this approach.
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---
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## Next Steps for Developers
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- Start by [**cloning the project repository**](https://github.com/neural-maze/vector-twin) to understand the architecture and functionality.
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- Expand the dataset with more celebrity images for diversity or fine-tune the FaceNet model for improved accuracy.
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- Consider deploying a mobile-friendly version using frameworks like **Flutter** or **React Native** for a seamless user experience.
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> For scalability, implement **multi-GPU setups** to speed up embedding generation and optimize storage with techniques like quantization or average embeddings.
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To enhance functionality, explore features like **video input for real-time matches** or add **metadata such as celebrity bios** to enrich user interaction. Experiment with custom similarity scoring for more tailored results.
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## More Links
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- Miguel's [LinkedIn profile](https://www.linkedin.com/in/migueloteropedrido/)
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- Miguel's [Substack blog](https://theneuralmaze.substack.com)
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- The Neural Maze [YouTube channel](https://www.youtube.com/@TheNeuralMaze)
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- Twin Celebrity [GitHub Repository](https://github.com/neural-maze/vector-twin)
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<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/LltFAum3gVg?si=yg95IvS38gXIrNlB" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>
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