Advanced Usage

For users looking for more granular control over face detection or wanting to explore advanced features, this guide dives deeper.

1. Direct Access to the Face Detector

For advanced scenarios, you might want direct access to the face detector instance. The useFaceDetector hook allows you to get the instance and work with it directly.

import {
  useFaceDetector,
  RNMLKitFaceDetectorOptions,
  RNMLKitFaceDetector
} from "@infinitered/react-native-mlkit-face-detection";

function AdvancedFaceComponent() {
  const faceDetector = useFaceDetector();

  // You can now call methods directly on the faceDetector instance
  // Example:
  const result = faceDetector.detectFaces('local_uri_of_your_image_uri');


  // or initialize the detector with or without custom options
  const initializeDetector = React.useCallback((options: RNMLKitFaceDetectorOptions | undefined) => {
    faceDetector.initialize(options);
  }, [faceDetector]);

  // rest of your component
}

link

tip

The useFaceDetector hook gives you maximum flexibility but requires a deeper understanding of the detector's API. Always refer back to the official documentation if in doubt.

2. Deferred Initialization

By default, the face detector initializes immediately upon the component's mount. However, in scenarios where you'd like to defer this initialization (maybe due to performance considerations or user-triggered actions), you can do so by setting the deferInitialization flag prop.

function App() {
  return (
    <RNMLKitFaceDetectionContextProvider
      options={FACE_DETECTION_OPTIONS}
      deferInitialization
    >
      {/* rest of your app goes here */}
    </RNMLKitFaceDetectionContextProvider>
  );
}

Then, when you're ready to initialize the detector you can simply call the initialize method:

import { useEffect } from "react";

function MyComponent() {
  const detector = useFaceDetector();
  useEffect(() => {
    detector.initialize();
  }, []);

  //...rest of your component
}

caution

Remember that the face detector will not work until it's initialized.

Ensure that it's initialized before trying to detect faces with it.

That's it for the advanced usage! Dive deep, and feel free to ask any questions in the community forums.