Add faces to a PersonGroup

This guide demonstrates how to add a large number of persons and faces to a PersonGroup object. The same strategy also applies to LargePersonGroup, FaceList, and LargeFaceList objects. This sample is written in C# by using the Azure Cognitive Services Face .NET client library.

Step 1: Initialization

The following code declares several variables and implements a helper function to schedule the face add requests:

  • PersonCount is the total number of persons.
  • CallLimitPerSecond is the maximum calls per second according to the subscription tier.
  • _timeStampQueue is a Queue to record the request timestamps.
  • await WaitCallLimitPerSecondAsync() waits until it's valid to send the next request.
const int PersonCount = 10000;
const int CallLimitPerSecond = 10;
static Queue<DateTime> _timeStampQueue = new Queue<DateTime>(CallLimitPerSecond);

static async Task WaitCallLimitPerSecondAsync()
{
    Monitor.Enter(_timeStampQueue);
    try
    {
        if (_timeStampQueue.Count >= CallLimitPerSecond)
        {
            TimeSpan timeInterval = DateTime.UtcNow - _timeStampQueue.Peek();
            if (timeInterval < TimeSpan.FromSeconds(1))
            {
                await Task.Delay(TimeSpan.FromSeconds(1) - timeInterval);
            }
            _timeStampQueue.Dequeue();
        }
        _timeStampQueue.Enqueue(DateTime.UtcNow);
    }
    finally
    {
        Monitor.Exit(_timeStampQueue);
    }
}

Step 2: Authorize the API call

When you use a client library, you must pass your subscription key to the constructor of the FaceClient class. For example:

private readonly IFaceClient faceClient = new FaceClient(
    new ApiKeyServiceClientCredentials("<SubscriptionKey>"),
    new System.Net.Http.DelegatingHandler[] { });

To get the subscription key, go to the Azure Marketplace from the Azure portal. For more information, see Subscriptions.

Step 3: Create the PersonGroup

A PersonGroup named "MyPersonGroup" is created to save the persons. The request time is enqueued to _timeStampQueue to ensure the overall validation.

const string personGroupId = "mypersongroupid";
const string personGroupName = "MyPersonGroup";
_timeStampQueue.Enqueue(DateTime.UtcNow);
await faceClient.LargePersonGroup.CreateAsync(personGroupId, personGroupName);

Step 4: Create the persons for the PersonGroup

Persons are created concurrently, and await WaitCallLimitPerSecondAsync() is also applied to avoid exceeding the call limit.

Person[] persons = new Person[PersonCount];
Parallel.For(0, PersonCount, async i =>
{
    await WaitCallLimitPerSecondAsync();

    string personName = $"PersonName#{i}";
    persons[i] = await faceClient.PersonGroupPerson.CreateAsync(personGroupId, personName);
});

Step 5: Add faces to the persons

Faces added to different persons are processed concurrently. Faces added for one specific person are processed sequentially. Again, await WaitCallLimitPerSecondAsync() is invoked to ensure that the request frequency is within the scope of limitation.

Parallel.For(0, PersonCount, async i =>
{
    Guid personId = persons[i].PersonId;
    string personImageDir = @"/path/to/person/i/images";

    foreach (string imagePath in Directory.GetFiles(personImageDir, "*.jpg"))
    {
        await WaitCallLimitPerSecondAsync();

        using (Stream stream = File.OpenRead(imagePath))
        {
            await faceClient.PersonGroupPerson.AddFaceFromStreamAsync(personGroupId, personId, stream);
        }
    }
});

Summary

In this guide, you learned the process of creating a PersonGroup with a massive number of persons and faces. Several reminders:

  • This strategy also applies to FaceLists and LargePersonGroups.
  • Adding or deleting faces to different FaceLists or persons in LargePersonGroups are processed concurrently.
  • Adding or deleting faces to one specific FaceList or person in a LargePersonGroup are done sequentially.
  • For simplicity, how to handle a potential exception is omitted in this guide. If you want to enhance more robustness, apply the proper retry policy.

The following features were explained and demonstrated:

Next steps

In this guide, you learned how to add face data to a PersonGroup. Next, learn how to use the enhanced data structure PersonDirectory to do more with your face data.