Facial expression recognition based on shape and texture

In this paper, an efficient method for human facial expression recognition is presented. We first propose a representation model for facial expressions, namely the spatially maximum occurrence model (SMOM), which is based on the statistical characteristics of training facial images and has a powerful representation capability. Then the elastic shape-texture matching (ESTM) algorithm is used to measure the similarity between images based on the shape and texture information. By combining SMOM and ESTM, the algorithm, namely SMOM-ESTM, can achieve a higher recognition performance level. The recognition rates of the SMOM-ESTM algorithm based on the AR database and the Yale database are 94.5% and 94.7%, respectively.     

Face recognition: the problem of compensating for changes inillumination direction

A face recognition system must recognize a face from a novel image despite the variations between images of the same face. A common approach to overcoming image variations because of changes in the illumination conditions is to use image representations that are relatively insensitive to these variations. Examples of such representations are edge maps, image intensity derivatives, and images convolved with 2D Gabor-like filters. Here we present an empirical study that evaluates the sensitivity of these representations to changes in illumination, as well as viewpoint and facial expression. Our findings indicated that none of the representations considered is sufficient by itself to overcome image variations because of a change in the direction of illumination. Similar results were obtained for changes due to viewpoint and expression. Image representations that emphasized the horizontal features were found to be less sensitive to changes in the direction of illumination. However, systems based only on such representations failed to recognize up to 20 percent of the faces in our database. Humans performed considerably better under the same conditions. We discuss possible reasons for this superiority and alternative methods for overcoming illumination effects in recognition     

基于局部Gabor变化直方图序列的人脸描述与识别

提出了一种在Gabor变换幅值域内提取局部变化模式空间直方图序列(histogram sequence of local Gabor binary patterns,简称HSLGBP)的人脸描述及其识别方法.鉴于Gabor特征对光照、表情等变化比较鲁棒,并已在人脸识别领域得到成功应用,首先对归一化的人脸图像进行多方向、多分辨率Gabor小波滤波,并提取其对应不同方向、不同尺度的多个Gabor幅值域图谱(Gabor magnitude map,简称GMM),然后在每个GMM上采用局部二值模式(local binary pattern,简称LBP)算子抽取局部邻域关系模式,最后由这些模式的区域直方图形成的序列来描述人脸.Gabor变换、LBP、空间区域直方图的采用使得该方法对光照变化、表情变化、误配准等具有良好的鲁棒性.而且,这种人脸建模方法不需要基于训练集合进行统计学习,因而不存在推广性问题.同时,进一步探讨了如何在分类器设计阶段与统计方法进行结合的问题,提出了统计Fisher加权的HSLGBP匹配方法.在通过FERET人脸库光照、表情和时间变化测试集上与已发表的实验结果进行对比,充分验证了该方法的有效性.     

基于自适应网格矢量编码的人脸快速匹配算法

在分析传统图像匹配算法优缺点的基础上,提出了一种基于自适应网格矢量编码的人脸快速匹配算法.该算法首先对人脸进行二值化边缘分割和脸部特征轮廓提取,并对图像的细节边缘和特征轮廓进行自适应网格划分,然后对网格内的边缘段和特征轮廓段进行链码描述及矢量编码,最后通过计算编码后的方向矢量矩阵相似度来实现人脸图像的匹配识别.通过对ORL标准人脸图像库的实验仿真及对比结果表明,该算法在降低计算复杂度及提高识别精度的同时,有效地解决了由图像旋转、姿态变化引起的微小形变以及不同光照条件所带来的图像识别率低的问题.     

Gabor相位特征的人脸光照不变量提取

为了消除光照变化对人脸识别的影响,提出一种基于Gabor相位特征的光照不变量提取算法。该算法首先对图像进行光照归一化,一定程度上减弱了不同光照条件的影响;然后利用一组不同方向的2维实Gabor小波对图像进行变换,在兼顾频谱与相位信息的情况下组合变换后的Gabor系数,提取其相位特征,得到光照不变量。在Yale B和CMU PIE人脸库上的实验结果表明,该算法能够有效消除光照变化对人脸识别的影响,提取的光照不变量具有一定的鲁棒性。     

A novel illumination-robust face recognition using statistical and non-statistical method

This paper proposes a novel illumination-robust face recognition technique that combines the statistical global illumination transformation and the non-statistical local face representation methods. When a new face image with arbitrary illumination is given, it is transformed into a number of face images exhibiting different illuminations using a statistical bilinear model-based indirect illumination transformation. Each illumination transformed image is then represented by a histogram sequence that concatenates the histograms of the non-statistical multi-resolution uniform local Gabor binary patterns (MULGBP) for all the local regions. This is facilitated by dividing the input image into several regular local regions, converting each local region using several Gabor filters, and converting each Gabor filtered region image into multi-resolution local binary patterns (MULBP). Finally, face recognition is performed by a simple histogram matching process. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed face recognition method is highly robust to illumination variation as exhibited in the real environment.     

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.     

Hybrid image matching combining Hausdorff distance with normalized gradient matching

Image matching has been a central problem in computer vision and image processing for decades. Most of the previous approaches to image matching can be categorized into the intensity-based and edge-based comparison. Hausdorff distance has been widely used for comparing point sets or edge maps since it does not require point correspondences. In this paper, we propose a new image similarity measure combining the Hausdorff distance with a normalized gradient consistency score for image matching. The normalized gradient consistency score is designed to compare the normalized image gradient fields between two images to alleviate the illumination variation problem in image matching. By combining the edge-based and intensity-based information for image matching, we are able to achieve robust image matching under different lighting conditions. We show the superior robustness property of the proposed image matching technique through experiments on face recognition under different lighting conditions.     

基于样例学习的任意光照下的人脸3D重建方法

待匹配的人脸图像与数据库中的原型图像之间的光照差异是自动人脸识别的主要瓶颈问题之一。提出了一种基于样例学习方式的3D人脸形状重建方法,既可以生成任意光照条件下的数据库中人脸图像,也可以对待识别图像进行重新光照,合成无阴影的图像。该方法在建立人脸数据库时利用光度立体技术分离人脸图像的纹理和形状信息,并用多面体模型在最小二乘意义下恢复其3D信息并更新法向量场以克服阴影误差,从而可以利用计算机图形学的方法合成任意光照条件下和小角度姿态改变时的人脸图像;在识别时采用数据库中3D数据的线性组合形式对输入图像建模,以估计其3D信息,从而可以重新照明。在YaleB人脸数据库上的实验表明,在建立3D人脸数据库后,该方法可以快速恢复输入单幅图像中人脸的3D信息,并生成任意光照条件的该人脸图像。     

基于多级Gabor变换序列特征的人脸识别

鉴于Gabor特征对光照、表情等变化具有鲁棒性,在寻找局部细节特征和全局轮廓特征的描述方面,提出一种基于多级局部多通道Gabor变换序列特征的人脸描述与识别方法。对人脸图像进行多级分块和对局部子块进行多方向、多分辨率Gabor小波滤波,并提取其对应不同方向、不同尺度的多个Gabor幅值域图谱(LGMM),将各级子图像的图谱LGMM进行连接后形成多级Gabor幅值域图谱,使用径向基网络对特征进行识别。对人脸库ORL和YEL的识别实验进行对比,结果验证了该方法的有效性。     

COMPARING FACE IMAGES USING THE MODIFIED HAUSDORFF DISTANCE

We introduce a novel methodology applicable to face matching and fast screening of large facial databases. The proposed shape comparison method operates on edge maps and derives holistic similarity measures, yet, it does not require solving the point correspondence problem. While the use of edge images is important to introduce robustness to changes in illumination, the lack of point-to-point matching delivers speed and tolerance to local non-rigid distortions. In particular, we propose a face similarity measure derived as a variant of the Hausdorff distance by introducing the notion of a neighborhood function (N) and associated penalties (P). Experimental results on a large set of face images demonstrate that our approach produces excellent recognition results even when less than 3% of the original grey-scale face image information is stored in the face database (gallery). These results implicate that the process of face recognition may start at a much earlier stage of visual processing than it was earlier suggested. We argue, that edge-like retinal images of faces are initially screened “at a glance” without the involvement of high-level cognitive functions thus delivering high speed and reducing computational complexity.     

Illumination robust single sample face recognition using multi-directional orthogonal gradient phase faces

Due to the limitation of the storage space in the real-world face recognition application systems, only one sample image per person is often stored in the system, which is the so-called single sample problem. Moreover, real-world illumination has impact on recognition performance. This paper presents an illumination robust single sample face recognition approach, which utilizes multi-directional orthogonal gradient phase faces to solve the above limitations. In the proposed approach, an illumination insensitive orthogonal gradient phase face is obtained by using two vertical directional gradient values of the original image. Multi-directional orthogonal gradient phase faces can be used to extend samples for single sample face recognition. Simulated experiments and comparisons on a subset of Yale B database, Yale database, a subset of PIE database and VALID face database show that the proposed approach is not only an outstanding method for single sample face recognition under illumination but also more effective when addressing illumination, expression, decoration, etc.     

一种人脸标准光照图像的线性重构方法

基于相同光照下不同人脸图像与其标准光照图像之间的稳定关系,文中提出一种人脸标准光照图像重构方法。首先,为消除人脸结构影响,引入人脸三维变形,实现图像像素级对齐。其次,根据图像明暗变化,给出一种基于图像分块的光照分类方法。最后,对于形状对齐后的不同光照类别样本,训练出基于子空间的线性重构模型。该方法有效避免传统预处理方法带来的重构图像纹理丢失和子空间方法引起的图像失真。Extended Yale B数据库上实验表明,该方法对图像真实度与人脸识别率的提升,也验证文中人脸对齐和光照分类方法的有效性。     

视频中适应光照可变情况下的人脸识别方法

提出一种结合使用自适应直方图均衡(AHE)、Gabor滤波器及局部三值模式(LTP)描述器进行视频中上下左右和正面光照条件下识别人脸的方法。首先,使用AHE对来自YaleB与CMU-PIE数据库的人脸图片进行降噪处理。然后用Gabor滤波器进行卷积,提取出相应的Gabor特征图,针对每一个Gabor特征图利用LTP描述器提取出局部邻域关系模式。最后由这些模式的区域直方图形成的序列来描述人脸。YaleB人脸库以及CMUPIE人脸库验证该方法的有效性。     

Automatic gender recognition based on pixel-pattern-based texture feature

A pixel-pattern-based texture feature (PPBTF) is proposed for real-time gender recognition. A gray-scale image is transformed into a pattern map where edges and lines are to be used for characterizing the texture information. On the basis of the pattern map, a feature vector is comprised the numbers of the pixels belonging to each pattern. We use the image basis functions obtained by principal component analysis (PCA) as the templates for pattern matching. The characteristics of the feature are comprehensively analyzed through an application to gender recognition. Adaboost is used to select the most discriminative feature subset, and support vector machine (SVMs) is adopted for classification. Performed on frontal images from FERET database, the comparisons with Gabor show that PPBTF is a significant facial representation, quite effective and speedier in computation.     

Gabor wavelet associative memory for face recognition

This letter describes a high-performance face recognition system by combining two recently proposed neural network models, namely Gabor wavelet network (GWN) and kernel associative memory (KAM), into a unified structure called Gabor wavelet associative memory (GWAM). GWAM has superior representation capability inherited from GWN and consequently demonstrates a much better recognition performance than KAM. Extensive experiments have been conducted to evaluate a GWAM-based recognition scheme using three popular face databases, i.e., FERET database, Olivetti-Oracle Research Lab (ORL) database and AR face database. The experimental results consistently show our scheme's superiority and demonstrate its very high-performance comparing favorably to some recent face recognition methods, achieving 99.3% and 100% accuracy, respectively, on the former two databases, exhibiting very robust performance on the last database against varying illumination conditions.     

Illumination invariant feature extraction and mutual-information-based local matching for face recognition under illumination variation and occlusion

An efficient method for face recognition which is robust under illumination variations is proposed. The proposed method achieves the illumination invariants based on the illumination-reflection model employing local matching for best classification. Different filters have been tested to achieve the reflectance part of the image, which is illumination invariant, and maximum filter is suggested as the best method for this purpose. A set of adaptively weighted classifiers vote on different sub-images of each input image and a decision is made based on their votes. Image entropy and mutual information are used as weight factors. The proposed method does not need any prior information about the face shape or illumination and can be applied on each image separately. Unlike most available methods, our method does not need multiple images in training stage to get the illumination invariants. Support vector machines and k-nearest neighbors methods are used as classifier. Several experiments are performed on Yale B, Extended Yale B and CMU-PIE databases. Recognition results show that the proposed method is suitable for efficient face recognition under illumination variations.     

Automatic 3D face recognition from depth and intensity Gabor features

As is well known, traditional 2D face recognition based on optical (intensity or color) images faces many challenges, such as illumination, expression, and pose variation. In fact, the human face generates not only 2D texture information but also 3D shape information. In this paper, we investigate what contributions depth and intensity information makes to face recognition when expression and pose variations are taken into account, and we propose a novel system for combining depth and intensity information to improve face recognition systems. In our system, local features described by Gabor wavelets are extracted from depth and intensity images, which are obtained from 3D data after fine alignment. Then a novel hierarchical selecting scheme embedded in linear discriminant analysis (LDA) and AdaBoost learning is proposed to select the most effective and most robust features and to construct a strong classifier. Experiments are performed on the CASIA 3D face database and the FRGC V2.0 database, two data sets with complex variations, including expressions, poses and long time lapses between two scans. Experimental results demonstrate the promising performance of the proposed method. In our system, all processes are performed automatically, thus providing a prototype of automatic face recognition combining depth and intensity information.     

一种新融合算法的维吾尔族人脸识别

针对维吾尔族人脸在光照以及部分遮挡下的辨识率下降和鲁棒性差的问题,提出了二维离散余弦变换（2DDCT）与方向边缘幅值模式（POEM）相融合的维吾尔族人脸识别算法。首先,把维吾尔族人脸图像分块处理,并使用2DDCT把其分块后的维吾尔族人脸图像转换为频域状态;其次,压缩维吾尔族人脸图像以排除维吾尔族人脸图像中无用信息,即中频部分与非低频部分,并进行二维离散余弦逆变换（IDCT）得到重构的维吾尔族人脸图像;然后,经POEM计算维吾尔族人脸图像的特征量得到其相应的POEM直方图并把直方图级联在一起,作为该中心特征点的POEM纹理直方图,得到维吾尔族人脸特征点的纹理特征信息;最后,采用深度学习算法进行分类识别。本文通过实验提出的算法,在自建的维吾尔族人脸库中能够进一步提高其人脸识别率,在维吾尔族人脸数据库中其运算速度也有很大提高。实验结果表明,该算法尤其是在维吾尔族人脸数据库中拥有较好的识别精度,具有很强的鲁棒性,特别是在光照以及部分遮挡下具有很强的优势。