Heartbeat: Measuring heart rate using remote photoplethysmography (rPPG)

Looking for more powerful and up-to-date rPPG tools?
Check out our latest libraries and apps!

📌 Tool	🚀 Features	⚡ Methods	🔗 Get Started
Python Library	File analysis (HR, RR, HRV)	G, POS, CHROM, VitalLens API	GitHub
JavaScript Library	Webcam or file analysis (HR, RR, HRV)	G, POS, CHROM, VitalLens API	GitHub
iOS SDK	Webcam or file analysis (HR, RR, HRV)	VitalLens API	GitHub
iOS App	Webcam processing (HR, RR)	VitalLens	App Store
Rouast Labs	More about our research & tech	VitalLens	Website

This is a simple implementation of rPPG, a way to measure heart rate without skin contact. It uses a video recording or live feed of the face to analyse subtle changes in skin color.

Here's how it works:

The face is detected and continuously tracked
Signal series is obtained by determining the facial color in every frame
Heart rate is estimated using frequency analysis and filtering of the series

If you are interested in the specifics, feel free to have a read of my publications on the topic:

See also my minimal JavaScript implementation and Browser Demo.

Demo

Dependencies

The following libraries are required to run Heartbeat:

OpenCV

They must be installed on the system such that headers and libraries are found on the compiler's standard search path.

Installation

For building a Makefile is available that works on macOS:

sh
$ make

Alternative compilation for Ubuntu. Works with opencv 3.1:

sh
$ g++ -std=c++11 Heartbeat.cpp opencv.cpp RPPG.cpp `pkg-config --cflags --libs opencv` -o Heartbeat

Settings

After building, the app can be run via

$ ./Heartbeat

Several command line arguments are available:

Argument	Options	Description
-i	Filepath to input video	Omit flag to use webcam
-rppg	g, pca (default: g)	Specify rPPG algorithm variant - only green channel or rgb channels with pca
-facedet	haar, deep (default: haar)	Specify face detection classifier - Haar cascade or deep neural network
-r	Re-detection interval (default: 1 s)	Interval for face re-detection; tracking is used frame-to-frame
-f	Sampling frequency (default: 1 Hz)	Frequency for heart rate estimation
-max	default: 5	Maximum size of signal sliding window
-min	default: 5	Minimum size of signal sliding window
-gui	true, false (default: true)	Display the GUI
-log	true, false (default: false)	Detailed logging
-ds	default: 1	If using video from file: Downsample by using every ith frame

License

GPL-3.0