Frequently Asked Questions
Short answers to the most common questions. For step-by-step help see the Quick Start, or the User Guide for depth.
Account & access
How do I sign up?
Create an account on the registration page with a username, email, and password. You'll get web console access and API credentials right away, on the Free plan.
Where are my API key and secret?
On your Profile page. The secret is hidden by default — click the eye icon to reveal it, and the copy button to grab it.
Can I reset my credentials?
Yes — email enquiry@virtisha.com and we'll rotate them.
What's the difference between the API key/secret and the login token?
The api_key/api_secret pair authenticates the recognition API (/detect/, /save/). The login token is a 24-hour bearer token for account endpoints like /user/. The web console uses a separate session cookie.
Plans & billing
What does the Free plan include?
1,000 API calls per month, 30 calls per minute, and up to 100 stored faces — enough to build and test a real integration.
How do I upgrade?
Plan changes are handled by our team. Email enquiry@virtisha.com and we'll move you to Basic, Pro, or Enterprise, effective immediately. There's no self-service billing in the console yet.
What counts as an API call?
Each match (/detect/) and each enroll (/save/) — including matches run from the console — uses one call from your monthly quota. Checking your usage does not count.
What happens when my plan expires?
Paid plans run monthly. If a subscription lapses, the account falls back to Free-plan limits until it's renewed — your data and galleries are preserved.
Galleries & faces
What is a gallery?
A private, named collection of faces that belongs only to you. You match against a chosen gallery (or all of yours), which keeps different groups — sites, teams, customers — cleanly separated.
Can other users see my faces?
No. Every face, gallery, and search is scoped to your account. Another account can never see or match against your data.
What image formats and sizes work?
JPG or PNG, sent as Base64. Use a clear, reasonably sized, front-facing photo. Very small or very large images both hurt results — a face a few hundred pixels wide is ideal.
How many faces can I store?
Up to your plan's limit: 100 (Free), 1,000 (Basic), 10,000 (Pro), or unlimited (Enterprise).
Does it handle multiple faces in one photo?
Yes — /detect/ returns a result for every face it finds. Enrollment (/save/) uses the most prominent face in the image.
Matching & accuracy
How is similarity measured?
Faces are turned into 512-number embeddings and compared by cosine similarity, a score from 0 to 1. A score of 0.50 or higher is treated as a match; 0.90+ is an excellent match.
Why do angled or tilted photos still match well?
Faces are aligned to a canonical template using five facial landmarks before the embedding is computed, so recognition stays robust across pose and angle.
How do I get the best accuracy?
Enroll a clear, well-lit, front-facing reference photo per person. Avoid sunglasses, masks, extreme angles, heavy shadows, and motion blur.
It returned "Unknown" — why?
The best candidate scored below the 0.50 threshold, or you searched the wrong gallery. Confirm the person is enrolled in the gallery you're searching, and try a clearer probe photo.
API & integration
What's the base URL?
https://solutions.virtisha.com. All endpoints are served over HTTPS.
Which languages are supported?
Any language that can make an HTTPS request — it's a standard JSON REST API. The Quick Start shows Python, JavaScript, and curl.
How do I send an image?
Base64-encode the file and put it in the image_b64 field. Raw Base64 and data: URLs both work.
Do you have SDKs?
Not yet — the API is simple enough to call directly, and the docs include copy-paste examples.
Rate limits
What are the limits?
A per-minute cap (30 on Free up to 600 on Pro) and a monthly quota by plan. Both return HTTP 429 when exceeded.
How should I handle a 429?
Back off briefly and retry for per-minute limits. If it's your monthly quota, wait for the reset or upgrade. Monitor /auth/usage/ to stay ahead of it.
Privacy & security
How is my data protected?
All traffic runs over HTTPS/TLS. Passwords are stored as bcrypt hashes, never in plain text. Faces, galleries, and searches are isolated per account.
Can anyone retrieve my face embeddings through the API?
No. The raw 512-dimension embeddings are kept server-side and are never returned by the recognition API.
How do I delete a face?
Open it in the Faces library and delete it, or call DELETE /remove/ with its face_id. Deleting a gallery removes its faces.
Who can see my activity?
Only you — and Virtisha administrators for support and account management. Other customers never can.
Troubleshooting
"Invalid API credentials" (401)
The api_key/api_secret headers are wrong or swapped. Copy both fresh from your Profile.
"Face Not Found"
No face was detected in the image. Use a larger, clearer, front-facing photo with good lighting.
My account says it's disabled
Disabled accounts are blocked from web and API access. Contact enquiry@virtisha.com.
Everything is slow on the first call
The very first request after a restart warms up the models; subsequent calls are fast.
Getting help
Email enquiry@virtisha.com — Mon–Sat, 9:00–19:00 IST. Include your account email and, if relevant, the endpoint and response you saw so we can help quickly.