Eulerian Magnification
About ten years ago, I saw the first demo of vision based heart rate detection. Eulerian Magnification was the technique used to accomplish this. In essence, it took slight changes in skin tone and made them more extreme so that it would be possible to see how the color shifts. You can count the frequency of the change and estimate the heart rate of a person.
Back then, I thought the technology was going to explode and we’d see it take off everywhere. It didn’t. We hardly come across it if at all.
Instead, the technology experienced a winter. It might still be there but the tools are slowly coming out to make it easier to perform. Neurodata Lab published an article a few years back on their work, although the demo no longer appears functional.
Yocolor has also released a some demo code to look at color shift patterns.
My wishlist would be to be able to copy a YouTube link and get an overlayed version of the video with facial tracking and the BPM. Imagine seeing a boxing match or a political debate with this data… it’d be much more exciting than just watching someone sweat.
This technology could also be used to enhance sports with almost cartoon-like actions. Maybe it won’t be the purple puck fiasco, but it might bring a new element of entertainment.
