Shimmering Verify Desktop Application User Guide
Shimmering Verify Control Center
Shimmering Verify Control Center allows you to:
- manage your face and speaker models
- manage the application settings (webcam and microphone, login methods, security levels)
- manage the plugins settings (Shimmering Verify Day, Shimmering Verify Login, Shimmering Verify Lock)
- activate your license to use some features of the application
You have different options to start the Shimmering Verify Control Center application:
- From the desktop shortcut “Shimmering Verify Control Center”.
- From the Start menu into All Programs→ShimmeringVerify→Shimmering Verify Control Center.
- By a right click on the Shimmering Verify system tray icon if the permanent protection (Shimmering Verify Lock plugin) is running.
Profiles Management
The “Face Models” and “Speaker Models” tabs allow you to manage your face and speaker models. Multiple face and speaker models can be created to improve recognition in different lighting conditions.
Face Model Creation
The face model is created using the face model creation wizard. To access the wizard, open Shimmering Verify Control Center, navigate to the “Face Models” tab and press the “Create your face profile” button. The wizard will start the video device. If required, you can change the device using the “change webcam” button. Once you are in the correct position, press the “Create a new face model” button to start face model creation.
To complete the face model creation, you will require to name the face model (e.g. Home, Office, Travel …) and to validate by entering your Windows session password.
Speaker Model Creation
The speaker model is created using the voice model creation wizard. To access the wizard, open Shimmering Verify Control Center, navigate to the “Speaker Models” tab and press the “Create your speaker profile” button. In order to create your voice model, you will need to read a small text. Make sure the correct microphone is selected in the wizard. If audio is well configured, you should see the gauge animating when you speak. Once you are ready, click on the record button and start reading the text.
To complete the voice model creation, you will require to name the voice model (e.g. Home, Office, Travel …) and to validate by entering your Windows session password.
Multi-Models Management
Given that the ambient conditions will always be a little different we strongly recommend that you create multiple face and speaker models that are optimized for you most used or know usage situations. When you create your face or voice model, it will be optimized for the specific current conditions including (luminosity, position, intensity, isotropy, or background). The face/speaker recognition can fail if they are too many differences between the face/voice model and the current conditions. This could happen when the sun’s light is changing for face recognition or if you’re in a different acoustic environment. In this case, you have now two solutions:
- improve your face model
- add a new model
Model Improvement If the recognition works sporadically or takes a long time (mean authentication time is high), you can improve an existing model to adapt it to the current conditions. The model will be modified to take the 2 situations into account. Use the “adapt” button to run the wizard and adapt a model. Adding a new model If the new conditions are too different between the first model and when you want to improve it, Shimmering Verify cannot process an improvement, so a new model will be created. You can force a new model creation by clicking “Add a new model”. A good habit would be to give as new name for this model the name of the current place (for example “office” or “home”), or current time (for example “office morning” or “office afternoon”).
Technology and Login Methods
The “Technology” tab of Shimmering Verify Control Center let you manage your login method, the security level and some antispoofing countermeasures.
Antispoofing: how does it work? The antispoofing algorithm has two parts:
- A preliminary spoof detection roughly detects that this is not a photograph in front of the webcam. In order to pass this step the global image must be still (no face movement nor background movement)
- A second verification is done by analyzing your eye-blinks. Once a blink is detected, Shimmering Verify opens your session. During this second step, the preliminary spoof detection is still running, so don’t move, except your eyes.
This works as follows:
The first anti-spoofing detection is performed in parallel with the recognition. Once the both of these processes validate, a blue eye icon appears in the top right corner of the video stream. Now blink your eyes once to log into your session.
Plugins
Shimmering Verify Login
Shimmering Verify Login plugin adds a new logon screen interface which allows to login or unlock the session using face or speaker recognition.
Shimmering Verify Lock
Shimmering Verify Lock plugin, or Permanent Protection, runs face recognition checks at regular intervals or after a certain idle time and autolock the session when you leave.
Shimmering Verify Day
Shimmering Verify Day plugin allows you to track your face evolution by saving automatically one image day after day.
Software Activation
In order to activate one of the Shimmering Verify packages, open the License tab, copy/paste the license you received after your purchase on Shimmering Verify website and press the “Activate” button. Please have a look at our license model for more information about license.
A restart of the software is required to apply the changes once activated.
License upgrade
If you bought the Shimmering Verify Basic and want to upgrade your license to the full featured “Gold package” version, open Shimmering Verify Control Center and open the License tab.
Then, click on the “Upgrade” button. You will be redirected to our online shop where you can continue your purchase.
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Once you purchase is complete, come back to Shimmering Verify Control Center and click on the “Check License” button, as illustrated below.
Your license will be updated and Shimmering Verify will propose you to restart Shimmering Verify Control Center to unlock your new features.
Software Deactivation
According to our license model, a license is associated to a single machine. Starting from version 2.6.2, Shimmering Verify allows you to deactivate the software to transfer the license to a new machine. Let’s say you have got a new computer and want to activate Shimmering Verify on this new machine. You have two options:
- buy a new license for that new machine (Shimmering Verify is activated on both machines) on our website
- transfer the license from your old machine to the new machine. This is done by deactivating the software on your old machine before activating it (with the same key) on your new machine.
To deactivate the software once activated, go to the License tab and click on the “Deactivate button”. If the deactivation was successful, you will get the following message.
Check for updates
With default settings, Shimmering Verify checks every day if updates are available. You can edit the settings for the check of updates in the “Settings” tab of the Shimmering Verify Control Center. You can also check manually for updates by clicking on “Check for updates now”. Then a message appears that tells you that Shimmering Verify will check if updates are available.
Click yes and Shimmering Verify begin to download the “Updater” that will update Shimmering Verify files.
Once this is done, click OK and follow the wizard that will automatically replace required files. If you press cancel, the updater file is automatically deleted and you will need to restart the procedure (a new check for updates) Once the download is complete, the updater will launch automatically.