Facial Recognition Software Is Helping Identify Unknown Figures in Civil War Photographs
Civil War Photo Sleuth aims to be the world’s largest, most complete digital archive of identified and unidentified Civil War-era portraits
By Meilan Solly
smithsonian.com
November 21, 2018
A new facial recognition application pioneered by computer scientist and historian Kurt Luther peers into the past—specifically the American Civil War—to identify anonymous portrait sitters captured in thousands of photographs taken over the course of the bloody four-year conflict.
As Erica X. Eisen reports for Slate, Civil War Photo Sleuth (CWPS) is a three-pronged collaboration launched in August by Luther and his Virginia Tech students; editor Ron Coddington of Military Images; and Paul Quigley, director of the Virginia Center for Civil War Studies. The project, as Luther detailed in a 2017 article for Military Images, features a digital photo archive, research tools and a thriving online community.
Read more:
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/facial-recognition-software-helping-identify-unknown-figures-civil-war-photographs-180970863/#70IgdwUZROIqWoci.99
