Architecture

Though you mostly interact with FindFace Multi through its web interface, be sure to take a minute to learn the FindFace Multi architecture. This knowledge is essential for the FindFace Multi deployment, integration, maintenance, and troubleshooting.

In this chapter:

Recognition Objects and Recognition Process

FindFace Multi can recognize the following objects and their features:

• human faces

• human bodies (silhouettes)

• cars

Note

The face recognition functionality is enabled by default. Make changes to configuration files to enable the body and car recognition.

FindFace Multi detects an object in the photo or video and prepares its image through normalization. The normalized image is then used for extracting the object’s feature vector (an n-dimensional vector of numerical features that represent the object). Object feature vectors are stored in the database and further used for verification and identification purposes.

Architectural Elements

FindFace Multi consists of the following fundamental architectural elements:

• FindFace core, a cutting-edge AI-based recognition technology that can be used as a separate product FindFace Enterprise Server.

• FindFace Multi, which is a turnkey application module for FindFace Enterprise Server.

Architecture scheme

FindFace Core

The FindFace core includes the following components:

Component	Ports in use	Description	Vendor
findface-extraction-api	18666	Service that uses neural networks to detect an object in an image and extract its feature vector. It also recognizes object attributes (for example, gender, age, emotions, beard, glasses, face mask - for face objects). CPU- or GPU-acceleration.	NtechLab own deployment
findface-sf-api	18411	Service that implements the internal HTTP API for object detection and recognition.
findface-tarantool-server	32001, shard ports (default 330xx, 81xx)	Service that provides interaction between the findface-sf-api service and the feature vector database (the Tarantool-powered database that stores object feature vectors.
findface-upload	3333	NginX-based web server used as a storage for original images, thumbnails and normalized object images.
findface-facerouter	18820	Service used to define processing directives for detected objects. In FindFace Multi, its functions are performed by findface-security (see FindFace Multi Application Module). If necessary, you can still deploy and enable this component for integration purposes (see findface-facerouter and Custom Plugins).
findface-video-manager	18810, 18811	Service, part of the video object detection module, that is used for managing the video object detection functionality, configuring the video object detector settings and specifying the list of to-be-processed video streams.
findface-video-worker	18999	Service, part of the video object detection module, that recognizes an object in the video and posts its normalized image, full frame and metadata (such as detection time) to the findface-facerouter service for further processing according to given directives. Provides face liveness detection if enabled. CPU- or GPU-acceleration.
findface-ntls	443 (TCP), 3133, 3185	License server which interfaces with the NtechLab Global License Server, a USB dongle, or hardware fingerprint to verify the license of your FindFace Multi instance.
Tarantool	Shard ports (default 330xx, 81xx)	Third-party software which implements the feature vector database that stores extracted object feature vectors and identification events. The system data, dossiers, user accounts, and camera settings are stored in PostgreSQL (part of the FindFace Multi application module).	Tarantool
etcd	2379	Third-party software that implements a distributed key-value store for findface-video-manager. Used as a coordination service in the distributed system, providing the video object detector with fault tolerance.	etcd
NginX	80; SSL: 8002, 8003, 443, 80	Third-party software which implements the system web interfaces.	nginx
memcached	11211	Third-party software which implements a distributed memory caching system. Used by findface-sf-api as a temporary storage for extracted object feature vectors before they are written to the feature vector database powered by Tarantool.	memcached

FindFace Multi Application Module

The FindFace Multi application module includes the following components:

Component	Ports in use	Description	Vendor
findface-security	Configurable	Component that serves as a gateway to the FindFace core. Provides interaction between the FindFace Core and the web interface, the system functioning as a whole, HTTP and web socket, object monitoring, event notifications, episodes, webhooks, and counters. Includes the following internal services: NTLS checker, Counter manager, Webhooks manager, Persons clusterizator, Event episodes manager, and Video archive queue manager. The last four can be enabled and disabled via the /etc/findface-security/config.py configuration file.	NtechLab own deployment
findface-security-ui	Configurable	Main web interface that is used to interact with FindFace Multi. Allows you to work with object identification events, search for objects, manage cameras, users, dossiers, and watch lists, collect real-time statistics, and many more.
findface-counter	18300	Service used for event deduplication.
findface-liveness-api	18301	Besides the embedded functionality provided by findface-video-worker, face liveness detection can also be harnessed as a standalone service findface-liveness-api. The service takes a specific number of frames from a video fragment and returns the best quality face, and decimal liveness result averaged across the taken frames (see Liveness Detection as Standalone Service). The service is also involved in the course of user authentication by face.
PostgreSQL	5432	Third-party software which implements the main system database that stores detailed and categorized dossiers on particular objects (faces, bodies, cars), and data for internal use such as user accounts and camera settings. The object feature vectors and object identification events are stored in Tarantool (part of the FindFace core).	PostgreSQL
Pgbouncer	5439	Third-party software, a lightweight connection pooler for PostgreSQL. Optional, used to increase the database performance under high load.	PgBouncer
NATS	4222	Third-party software which implements a message broker inside findface-security.	NATS
Django	5439	Third-party software which implements a web framework for the FindFace Multi web interface.	Django
etcd	2379	Third-party software that implements locks in the findface-security service, such as locks in NTLS checker, reports, video processing, person clusterization, etc.	etcd

See also

Components in Depth

Single- and Multi-Host Deployment

You can deploy FindFace Multi on a single host or in a cluster environment. If you opt for the latter, we offer you one of the following deployment schemes:

• Deploy FindFace Multi standalone and distribute additional findface-video-worker components across multiple hosts.

• Distribute the FindFace Multi components across multiple hosts. If necessary, set up load balancing.

See Guide to Typical Cluster Installation for details.

CPU- and GPU-acceleration

The findface-extraction-api and findface-video-worker services can be either CPU- or GPU-based. During installation from the developer-friendly installer, you will have an opportunity to choose the acceleration type you need.

If you opt to install FindFace Multi from the repository package, deploy the findface-extraction-api and findface-video-worker-cpu packages on a CPU-based server, and the findface-extraction-api-gpu and/or findface-video-worker-gpu packages on a GPU-based server.

Important

Refer to Requirements when choosing hardware configuration.

Important

If the resolution of a camera(s) in use is more than 1280x720px, it is strongly recommended to use the GPU-accelerated package findface-video-worker-gpu.

Note

The liveness detector is much slower on CPU than on GPU.