Emotion Recognition Using PHP and Camera: A Step-by-Step Guide

Camera-based emotion recognition is introduced, explaining how to set up the environment on a Linux system using PHP.

First, install the PHP GD library and V4L2 utilities:

sudo apt-get install php7.4-gd
sudo apt-get install v4l-utils

Then, obtain a video frame from the camera using PHP's shell_exec to run an FFmpeg command, saving the image to a file and displaying it with an <img> tag.

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For emotion analysis, the Fer2013 model is invoked via a Python script. A PHP function getEmotion passes the image path to the script and returns the detected emotion.

Running the complete example displays the live camera frame on a web page and prints the inferred emotional state, providing a practical introduction to integrating camera input with AI-driven emotion detection in PHP.