Patent Document ID: 9224034
Application ID: 14579773
Patent Status: 1

Claim One:
1. A device, comprising: an image acquiring unit communicatively coupled to a memory unit, and configured to acquire data of a digital image that depicts one or more objects; and a face detection unit configured to: perform face detection within a first relatively large window of said image at a first location; obtain from said face detection a confidence level that is below a threshold indicating a probability that no face is present at or in a vicinity of said first location; perform second face detection within a second relatively large window of said image at a second location displaced from the first location by a first x-amount in a first direction and/or by a first y-amount in an orthogonal second direction; obtain from said second face detection a confidence level that is at or above said threshold indicating a probability that the image at least may include a face in the vicinity of the second location; apply a sequence of windows, including relatively smaller windows than said second relatively large window, at further locations in the vicinity of said second location, including a third location that is displaced from the second location by a second x-amount that is smaller than the first x-amount in the first direction and/or by a second y-amount that is smaller than the first y-amount in the orthogonal second direction wherein a magnitude of displacement by respective values of x-amount in a first direction and/or by respective values of y-amount in an orthogonal second direction is variable between successive windows of said sequence of windows within said image and wherein said x-amount and/or said y-amount decreases between successive windows when a confidence level indicating that the image at least may include a face increases across one or more further thresholds; and repeat the obtaining of confidence levels until face detection for multiple predetermined sizes of windows has been performed over an entire region of interest of said image.