Post #2593849
2026-05-13 01:49 UTC
RE: https://vt.social/@lina/116562210481202674
It's kind of crazy how *simple* the private FaceKit API is. It's just a pure C API that uses NSDictionary for arguments and configuration. Three functions (init, get semantics, and process).
You give it a CVImageBuffer and face rects and it gives you all the tracking data.
There's even a Lite version of the API that I think can do face detection internally (otherwise you need to do it yourself by using something like Vision.framework).
I haven't tried it yet because ARKit doesn't use it, and I don't know for sure if it's equivalent or more limited.
But yeah... Apple should just open this up. There's no reason to tie the awesome face tracking model to the ARKit behemoth and iDevices only! The raw FaceKit API works with any video input, you could feed it a recording or static photos if you wanted.
Replies (4)
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@nicolas17@social.treehouse.systems 2026-05-13 01:59
@lina@vt.social I searched AppleCVA on DuckDuckGo and the first two results are your gist and your tweets. 1. that's fast indexing, 2. seems literally nobody documented this before!
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@viraptor@cyberplace.social 2026-05-13 03:03
@lina@vt.social This basically applies to most libraries and utilities they release IMO. There's so much silly crap I needed to reverse / reimplemention from their build tools recently. Just opensource all the simple things already or make them non-private at least... 😤
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@bianca0096@urusai.social 2026-05-13 05:13
@lina@vt.social would definitely be cool as heck to see this running on non-iOS devices
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@caleb@goodfeeds.net 2026-05-14 10:16
@lina@vt.social Because people don’t say it enough: you’re amazing. Keep up the awesome work (not on this specifically, just in general). Rock on. :)