基于光照线性子空间的人脸图像识别研究

以前的研究已经证明,在变化光照条件,甚至多个光源和阴影存在的情况下,对象（尤其是人脸）所形成的图像能够被低维线性子空间有效地表示。Lee证明了存在9个光源方向的统一配置,任一对象在这些统一配置光照方向下的9幅图像所组成的线性子空间,能够很好地表示该对象所有光照情况,并且达到了很好的识别性能。但它要求每一对象在统一配置光照方向下的9幅图像作为训练集,这一要求限制了它在实际中的应用。此外,商图像方法中简单的三维点光源模型无法很好地近似任意光照情况,因此,提出一种基于九维线性子空间的改进的商图像方法,并利用改进后的商图像方法合成对象在统一配置光源方向下的9幅图像,克服了Lee所提方法的不足。该文方法较好地满足了商图像方法的理论前提,从而达到了较好的图像合成和人脸识别性能。     

深度人脸识别的光照分析

光照是影响人脸识别效果的重要因素,针对当前人脸数据建库技术构建满足光照分析需求的数据库难度较大的问题,开展基于三维人脸模型的深度人脸识别光照分析研究.首先,借助三维人脸模型,根据人脸基图像表示理论提出一种对应任意光照的人脸图像生成方法,用于构建光照分析所需的人脸图像库;然后,利用构建的多光照人脸图像库分析不同光照采样方案对人脸识别模型性能的影响,探索建库所需的最优光照采样方案;最后,借助虚拟数据具有准确光照标注的优势,基于多任务学习框架测试不同光照标注方法对识别网络训练效果的影响,进一步提高深度人脸识别网络对光照变化的鲁棒性.通过在虚拟数据和真实数据上开展的不同光照采样方案及标注方法对人脸识别模型性能影响的实验得出,使用适量基图像光照构建数据库是一种有效的光照采样方案,而准确的光照标注可进一步提升人脸识别率,对应的识别模型在具备极端光照的测试集上的人脸识别率可达98%以上.该研究提高了深度人脸识别模型的性能,为构建人脸图像库的光照采样策略和光照标注方法提供了依据.     

可变光照条件下的人脸图像识别

对于人脸图像识别中光照变化的影响,传统的解决方法是对待识别图像进行光照补偿,先使它成为标准光照条件下的图像,然后和模板图像匹配来进行识别。为了提高在光照条件大范围变化时,人脸图像的识别率,提出了一种新的可变光照条件下的人脸图像识别方法。该方法首先利用在9个基本光照方向下分别获得的9幅图像来构成人脸光照特征空间,再通过这个光照特征空间,将图像库中的人脸图像变换成与待识别图像具有相同光照条件的图像,并将其作为模板图像;然后利用特征脸方法进行识别。实验结果表明,这种方法不仅能够有效地解决人脸识别中由于光照变化影响所造成的识别率下降的问题,而且对于光照条件大范围变化的情况,也可以得到比较高的正确识别率。     

相关滤波器和2DPCA相融合的变光照人脸识别

为解决变光照下人脸识别的识别率低问题,提出一种最佳相关滤波和2DPCA相融合的光照人脸识别方法。通过采用特定类2DPCA重构人脸图像,生成一对相关滤波器;测试人脸图像通过相关性滤器将投影到二维子空间中,并根据预先设定的峰旁瓣比阈值进行人脸识别;最后采用PIE和YaleB人脸库进行仿真实验。相比其他人脸识别方法,该方法获得了更高的人脸识别率,鲁棒性更强。     

基于球面谐波基图像的任意光照下的人脸识别

提出了一种基于球面谐波基图像的光照补偿算法,用以在任意光照条件下进行人脸识别.算法分两步进行：光照估计和光照补偿.基于人脸形状大致相同和每个人脸的反射率基本相等的假设,首先估计了输入人脸图像光照的9个低频谐波系数.根据光照估计的结果,提出了两种光照补偿方法：纹理图像和差图像.纹理图像为输入图像与其光照辐照图之商,与输入图像的光照条件无关.差图像为输入图像与平均人脸在相同光照下的图像之差,通过减去平均人脸在相同光照下的图像,减弱了光照的影响.在CMU-PIE人脸库和Yale B人脸库上的实验表明,通过光照补偿,不同光照下人脸图像识别率有了很大提高.     

一种人脸图像光照补偿的新方法

光照的变化容易引起人脸识别率急剧下降,针对这一难题,提出一种新的光照补偿的方法.首先通过构造原人脸图的二值图,确定出原图所属的光源方向.在除正面光源外的每个光源方向上构造出通用的平均亮度差值来进行光照补偿.结合去掉三个特征值最大的PCA特征向量的方法进行识别.实验表明,这种方法能够显著提高光照变化条件下的人脸识别率,特别是对于光照条件大范围变化的情况,也可以得到比较高的正确识别率.     

基于光照方向估计的人脸图像阴影补偿

光照变化是影响人脸识别率的关键问题之一.人脸图像中的阴影严重影响了光照不变特征的有效提取.采用了一种基于光照方向估计的阴影补偿方法.因为人脸形状的相似性,某一点光源方向产生的阴影特性具有相似性.利用这一特性,首先通过子空间方法确定人脸图像的光源方向,然后再对该人脸图像进行相应的阴影补偿.在对人脸库YaleB和Extended YaleB （38人脸）的实验中表明,64种光源方向的识别率为96.8％.该方法能有效消除阴影便于后续光照不变特征的有效提取.     

复杂光照条件下基于深度学习的人脸识别方法

由于传统方法在复杂光照条件下人脸识别的识别时间比较长、误识率较高，提出复杂光照条件下基于深度学习的人脸识别方法。首先，利用相机与灯光组合拍摄不同光照条件下人脸图像，建立复杂光照条件下人脸数据集。其次，对人脸图像进行对数转换、直方图均衡化以及自适应滤波处理。最后，建立深度学习网络模型，利用模型提取和识别人脸特征。分析实验可知，在复杂光照条件下，设计方法人脸识别时间在1 s以内，误识率在1%以内。     

一种基于光照方向估计的人脸识别方法

针对不同光照条件下的人脸识别率较低,尤其是在极端光照条件下识别率急剧下降的问题,提出了一种基于垂直积分投影和高光区域处理的光照方向估计方法.利用该方法,可以根据估计的光照方向对不同的光照条件下的图像进行分类.经过分类后,将每个光照类别对应一个投影子空间,然后将分好类的图像分别投影到各自的子空间进行识别,以提高识别效果.最后在YaleB人脸数据库上进行实验,实验结果表明该方法可有效地提高在不同光照条件下的人脸识别率.     

改进Retinex和稀疏表示的光照人脸识别

为了提高光照变化条件下的人脸识别率,针对当前人脸识别方法存在的缺陷,提出了一种改进Retinex算法和稀疏表示相融合的光照人脸识别方法。首先对Retinex算法的不足进行改进,并应用于人脸图像预处理中,消除光照对人脸识别的干扰,然后采用稀疏表示提取人脸特征向量,并采用投票方式实现人脸识别,最后通过3个标准人脸数据库对方法的性能进行测试。结果表明,该方法不仅提高了人脸识别率,而且缩短了人脸识别时间,对光照具有较好的鲁棒性。     

Acquiring linear subspaces for face recognition under variable lighting

Previous work has demonstrated that the image variation of many objects (human faces in particular) under variable lighting can be effectively modeled by low-dimensional linear spaces, even when there are multiple light sources and shadowing. Basis images spanning this space are usually obtained in one of three ways: a large set of images of the object under different lighting conditions is acquired, and principal component analysis (PCA) is used to estimate a subspace. Alternatively, synthetic images are rendered from a 3D model (perhaps reconstructed from images) under point sources and, again, PCA is used to estimate a subspace. Finally, images rendered from a 3D model under diffuse lighting based on spherical harmonics are directly used as basis images. In this paper, we show how to arrange physical lighting so that the acquired images of each object can be directly used as the basis vectors of a low-dimensional linear space and that this subspace is close to those acquired by the other methods. More specifically, there exist configurations of k point light source directions, with k typically ranging from 5 to 9, such that, by taking k images of an object under these single sources, the resulting subspace is an effective representation for recognition under a wide range of lighting conditions. Since the subspace is generated directly from real images, potentially complex and/or brittle intermediate steps such as 3D reconstruction can be completely avoided; nor is it necessary to acquire large numbers of training images or to physically construct complex diffuse (harmonic) light fields. We validate the use of subspaces constructed in this fashion within the context of face recognition.     

Face recognition from a single training image under arbitrary unknown lighting using spherical harmonics

In this paper, we propose two novel methods for face recognition under arbitrary unknown lighting by using spherical harmonics illumination representation, which require only one training image per subject and no 3D shape information. Our methods are based on the result which demonstrated that the set of images of a convex Lambertian object obtained under a wide variety of lighting conditions can be approximated accurately by a low-dimensional linear subspace. We provide two methods to estimate the spherical harmonic basis images spanning this space from just one image. Our first method builds the statistical model based on a collection of 2D basis images. We demonstrate that, by using the learned statistics, we can estimate the spherical harmonic basis images from just one image taken under arbitrary illumination conditions if there is no pose variation. Compared to the first method, the second method builds the statistical models directly in 3D spaces by combining the spherical harmonic illumination representation and a 3D morphable model of human faces to recover basis images from images across both poses and illuminations. After estimating the basis images, we use the same recognition scheme for both methods: we recognize the face for which there exists a weighted combination of basis images that is the closest to the test face image. We provide a series of experiments that achieve high recognition rates, under a wide range of illumination conditions, including multiple sources of illumination. Our methods achieve comparable levels of accuracy with methods that have much more onerous training data requirements. Comparison of the two methods is also provided.     

Face recognition under varying illumination based on a 2D face shape model

This paper proposes a novel illumination compensation algorithm, which can compensate for the uneven illuminations on human faces and reconstruct face images in normal lighting conditions. A simple yet effective local contrast enhancement method, namely block-based histogram equalization (BHE), is first proposed. The resulting image processed using BHE is then compared with the original face image processed using histogram equalization (HE) to estimate the category of its light source. In our scheme, we divide the light source for a human face into 65 categories. Based on the category identified, a corresponding lighting compensation model is used to reconstruct an image that will visually be under normal illumination. In order to eliminate the influence of uneven illumination while retaining the shape information about a human face, a 2D face shape model is used. Experimental results show that, with the use of principal component analysis for face recognition, the recognition rate can be improved by 53.3% to 62.6% when our proposed algorithm for lighting compensation is used.     

From few to many: illumination cone models for face recognitionunder variable lighting and pose

We present a generative appearance-based method for recognizing human faces under variation in lighting and viewpoint. Our method exploits the fact that the set of images of an object in fixed pose, but under all possible illumination conditions, is a convex cone in the space of images. Using a small number of training images of each face taken with different lighting directions, the shape and albedo of the face can be reconstructed. In turn, this reconstruction serves as a generative model that can be used to render (or synthesize) images of the face under novel poses and illumination conditions. The pose space is then sampled and, for each pose, the corresponding illumination cone is approximated by a low-dimensional linear subspace whose basis vectors are estimated using the generative model. Our recognition algorithm assigns to a test image the identity of the closest approximated illumination cone. Test results show that the method performs almost without error, except on the most extreme lighting directions     

Face recognition under arbitrary illumination using illuminated exemplars

Recently, the importance of face recognition has been increasingly emphasized since popular CCD cameras are distributed to various applications. However, facial images are dramatically changed by lighting variations, so that facial appearance changes caused serious performance degradation in face recognition. Many researchers have tried to overcome these illumination problems using diverse approaches, which have required a multiple registered images per person or the prior knowledge of lighting conditions. In this paper, we propose a new method for face recognition under arbitrary lighting conditions, given only a single registered image and training data under unknown illuminations. Our proposed method is based on the illuminated exemplars which are synthesized from photometric stereo images of training data. The linear combination of illuminated exemplars can represent the new face and the weighted coefficients of those illuminated exemplars are used as identity signature. We make experiments for verifying our approach and compare it with two traditional approaches. As a result, higher recognition rates are reported in these experiments using the illumination subset of Max-Planck Institute face database and Korean face database.     

Lambertian reflectance and linear subspaces

We prove that the set of all Lambertian reflectance functions (the mapping from surface normals to intensities) obtained with arbitrary distant light sources lies close to a 9D linear subspace. This implies that, in general, the set of images of a convex Lambertian object obtained under a wide variety of lighting conditions can be approximated accurately by a low-dimensional linear subspace, explaining prior empirical results. We also provide a simple analytic characterization of this linear space. We obtain these results by representing lighting using spherical harmonics and describing the effects of Lambertian materials as the analog of a convolution. These results allow us to construct algorithms for object recognition based on linear methods as well as algorithms that use convex optimization to enforce nonnegative lighting functions. We also show a simple way to enforce nonnegative lighting when the images of an object lie near a 4D linear space. We apply these algorithms to perform face recognition by finding the 3D model that best matches a 2D query image.     

Illumination invariant face recognition

The appearance of a face will vary drastically when the illumination changes. Variations in lighting conditions make face recognition an even more challenging and difficult task. In this paper, we propose a novel approach to handle the illumination problem. Our method can restore a face image captured under arbitrary lighting conditions to one with frontal illumination by using a ratio-image between the face image and a reference face image, both of which are blurred by a Gaussian filter. An iterative algorithm is then used to update the reference image, which is reconstructed from the restored image by means of principal component analysis (PCA), in order to obtain a visually better restored image. Image processing techniques are also used to improve the quality of the restored image. To evaluate the performance of our algorithm, restored images with frontal illumination are used for face recognition by means of PCA. Experimental results demonstrate that face recognition using our method can achieve a higher recognition rate based on the Yale B database and the Yale database. Our algorithm has several advantages over other previous algorithms: (1) it does not need to estimate the face surface normals and the light source directions, (2) it does not need many images captured under different lighting conditions for each person, nor a set of bootstrap images that includes many images with different illuminations, and (3) it does not need to detect accurate positions of some facial feature points or to warp the image for alignment, etc.     

Face Relighting from a Single Image under Arbitrary Unknown Lighting Conditions

In this paper, we present a new method to modify the appearance of a face image by manipulating the illumination condition, when the face geometry and albedo information is unknown. This problem is particularly difficult when there is only a single image of the subject available. Recent research demonstrates that the set of images of a convex Lambertian object obtained under a wide variety of lighting conditions can be approximated accurately by a low-dimensional linear subspace using a spherical harmonic representation. Moreover, morphable models are statistical ensembles of facial properties such as shape and texture. In this paper, we integrate spherical harmonics into the morphable model framework by proposing a 3D spherical harmonic basis morphable model (SHBMM). The proposed method can represent a face under arbitrary unknown lighting and pose simply by three low-dimensional vectors, i.e., shape parameters, spherical harmonic basis parameters, and illumination coefficients, which are called the SHBMM parameters. However, when the image was taken under an extreme lighting condition, the approximation error can be large, thus making it difficult to recover albedo information. In order to address this problem, we propose a subregion-based framework that uses a Markov random field to model the statistical distribution and spatial coherence of face texture, which makes our approach not only robust to extreme lighting conditions, but also insensitive to partial occlusions. The performance of our framework is demonstrated through various experimental results, including the improved rates for face recognition under extreme lighting conditions.     

Homomorphic filtering based illumination normalization method for face recognition

The appearance of a face image is severely affected by illumination conditions that will hinder the automatic face recognition process. To recognize faces under varying lighting conditions, a homomorphic filtering-based illumination normalization method is proposed in this paper. In this work, the effect of illumination is effectively reduced by a modified implementation of homomorphic filtering whose key component is a Difference of Gaussian (DoG) filter, and the contrast is enhanced by histogram equalization. The resulted face image is not only reduced illumination effect but also preserved edges and details that will facilitate the further face recognition task. Among others, our method has the following advantages: (1) neither does it need any prior information of 3D shape or light sources, nor many training samples thus can be directly applied to single training image per person condition; and (2) it is simple and computationally fast because there are mature and fast algorithms for the Fourier transform used in homomorphic filter. The Eigenfaces method is chosen to recognize the normalized face images. Experimental results on the Yale face database B and the CMU PIE face database demonstrate the significant performance improvement of the proposed method in the face recognition system for the face images with large illumination variations.