A Multimodal Approach for Face Modeling and Recognition

In this paper, we present a fully automated multi- modal (3-D and 2-D) face recognition system. For the 3-D modality, we model the facial image as a 3-D binary ridge image that contains the ridge lines on the face. We use the principal curvature $kappa_{rm max}$ to extract the locations of the ridge lines around the important facial regions on the range image (i.e., the eyes, the nose, and the mouth.) For matching, we utilize a fast variant of the iterative closest point to match the ridge image of a given probe image to the archived ridge images in the database. The main advantage of this approach is reducing the computational complexity by two orders of magnitude by relying on the ridge lines. For the 2-D modality, we model the face by an attributed relational graph (ARG), where each node of the graph corresponds to a facial feature point. At each facial feature point, a set of attributes is extracted by applying Gabor wavelets to the 2-D image and assigned to the node of the graph. The edges of the graph are defined based on Delaunay triangulation and a set of geometrical features that defines the mutual relations between the edges is extracted from the Delaunay triangles and stored in the ARG model. The similarity measure between the ARG models that represent the probe and gallery images is used for 2-D face recognition. Finally, we fuse the matching results of the 3-D and the 2-D modalities at the score level to improve the overall performance of the system. Different techniques for fusion, such as the Dempster–Shafer theory of evidence and weighted sum of scores are employed and tested using the facial images in the third experiment dataset of the Face Recognition Grand Challenge version 2.0.      

刚性区域特征点的3维人脸识别

目的 针对3维人脸识别中存在表情变化的问题,提出了一种基于刚性区域特征点的3维人脸识别方法。方法 该方法首先在人脸纹理图像上提取人脸图像的特征点,并删除非刚性区域内的特征点,然后根据采样点的序号,在人脸空间几何信息上得到人脸图像特征点的3维几何信息,并建立以特征点为中心的刚性区域内的子区域,最后以子区域为局部特征进行人脸识别测试,得到不同子区域对人脸识别的贡献,并以此作为依据对人脸识别的结果进行加权统计。结果 在FRGC v2.0的3维人脸数据库上进行实验测试,该方法的识别准确率为98.5%,当错误接受率（FAR）为0.001时的验证率为99.2%,结果表明,该方法对非中性表情下的3维人脸识别具有很好的准确性。结论 该方法可以有效克服表情变化对3维人脸识别的影响,同时对3维数据中存在的空洞和尖锐噪声等因素具有较好的鲁棒性,对提高3维人脸识别性能具有重要意义。     

Elastic shape-texture matching for human face recognition

In this paper, a novel, elastic, shape-texture matching method, namely ESTM, for human face recognition is proposed. In our approach, both the shape and the texture information are used to compare two faces without establishing any precise pixel-wise correspondence. The edge map is used to represent the shape of an image, while the texture information is characterized by both the Gabor representations and the gradient direction of each pixel. Combining these features, a shape-texture Hausdorff distance is devised to compute the similarity of two face images. The elastic matching is robust to small, local distortions of the feature points such as those caused by facial expression variations. In addition, the use of the edge map, Gabor representations and the direction of the image gradient can all alleviate the effect of illumination to a certain extent.With different databases, experimental results show that our algorithm can always achieve a better performance than other face recognition algorithms under different conditions, except when an image is under poor and uneven illumination. Experiments based on the Yale database, AR database, ORL database and YaleB database show that our proposed method can achieve recognition rates of 88.7%, 97.7%, 78.3% and 89.5%, respectively.     

结合形变模型与图像修复的人脸姿态矫正

目的 人脸姿态偏转是影响人脸识别准确率的一个重要因素,本文利用3维人脸重建中常用的3维形变模型以及深度卷积神经网络,提出一种用于多姿态人脸识别的人脸姿态矫正算法,在一定程度上提高了大姿态下人脸识别的准确率。方法 对传统的3维形变模型拟合方法进行改进,利用人脸形状参数和表情参数对3维形变模型进行建模,针对面部不同区域的关键点赋予不同的权值,加权拟合3维形变模型,使得具有不同姿态和面部表情的人脸图像拟合效果更好。然后,对3维人脸模型进行姿态矫正并利用深度学习对人脸图像进行修复,修复不规则的人脸空洞区域,并使用最新的局部卷积技术同时在新的数据集上重新训练卷积神经网络,使得网络参数达到最优。结果 在LFW（labeled faces in the wild）人脸数据库和StirlingESRC（Economic Social Research Council）3维人脸数据库上,将本文算法与其他方法进行比较,实验结果表明,本文算法的人脸识别精度有一定程度的提高。在LFW数据库上,通过对具有任意姿态的人脸图像进行姿态矫正和修复后,本文方法达到了96.57%的人脸识别精确度。在StirlingESRC数据库上,本文方法在人脸姿态为±22°的情况下,人脸识别准确率分别提高5.195%和2.265%;在人脸姿态为±45°情况下,人脸识别准确率分别提高5.875%和11.095%;平均人脸识别率分别提高5.53%和7.13%。对比实验结果表明,本文提出的人脸姿态矫正算法有效提高了人脸识别的准确率。结论 本文提出的人脸姿态矫正算法,综合了3维形变模型和深度学习模型的优点,在各个人脸姿态角度下,均能使人脸识别准确率在一定程度上有所提高。     

Natural facial expression recognition using differential-AAM and manifold learning

This paper proposes a novel natural facial expression recognition method that recognizes a sequence of dynamic facial expression images using the differential active appearance model (AAM) and manifold learning as follows. First, the differential-AAM features (DAFs) are computed by the difference of the AAM parameters between an input face image and a reference (neutral expression) face image. Second, manifold learning embeds the DAFs on the smooth and continuous feature space. Third, the input facial expression is recognized through two steps: (1) computing the distances between the input image sequence and gallery image sequences using directed Hausdorff distance (DHD) and (2) selecting the expression by a majority voting of k-nearest neighbors (k-NN) sequences in the gallery. The DAFs are robust and efficient for the facial expression analysis due to the elimination of the inter-person, camera, and illumination variations. Since the DAFs treat the neutral expression image as the reference image, the neutral expression image must be found effectively. This is done via the differential facial expression probability density model (DFEPDM) using the kernel density approximation of the positively directional DAFs changing from neutral to angry (happy, surprised) and negatively directional DAFs changing from angry (happy, surprised) to neutral. Then, a face image is considered to be the neutral expression if it has the maximum DFEPDM in the input sequences. Experimental results show that (1) the DAFs improve the facial expression recognition performance over conventional AAM features by 20% and (2) the sequence-based k-NN classifier provides a 95% facial expression recognition performance on the facial expression database (FED06).     

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.     

基于网格变形的从图像重建三维人脸

从图像重建高质量三维人脸一直是计算机视觉和图形学的一个重要研究问题.不同于传统的基于立体匹配的窄基线多视几何和数据驱动的人脸形变方法,提出一种结合网格变形技术和立体视觉原理的、从图像重建高质量三维人脸模型方法.给定从不同视角拍摄的几幅人脸图像,基于健壮图像特征获得可靠的相机外部参数和稀疏三维点;在此基础上,提出一种结合几何细节保持和图像一致性约束的三维人脸变形算法重建三维人脸,通过对人脸模板的网格变形,使得变形人脸在多幅图像中的可见投影具有一致性的图像颜色强度.基于模板的人脸变形可以有效地解决三维模型成像中的遮挡问题,采用健壮估计法消除噪声、离群点和光照对目标函数收敛性的影响,对目标函数的多次非线性优化求解进一步改进了人脸重建的质量.采用合成人脸图像和真实人脸图像重建三维人脸的实验结果表明,文中算法可以从几幅宽基线图像重建高质量的三维人脸模型.     

Anthropometric 3D Face Recognition

We present a novel anthropometric three dimensional (Anthroface 3D) face recognition algorithm, which is based on a systematically selected set of discriminatory structural characteristics of the human face derived from the existing scientific literature on facial anthropometry. We propose a novel technique for automatically detecting 10 anthropometric facial fiducial points that are associated with these discriminatory anthropometric features. We isolate and employ unique textural and/or structural characteristics of these fiducial points, along with the established anthropometric facial proportions of the human face for detecting them. Lastly, we develop a completely automatic face recognition algorithm that employs facial 3D Euclidean and geodesic distances between these 10 automatically located anthropometric facial fiducial points and a linear discriminant classifier. On a database of 1149 facial images of 118 subjects, we show that the standard deviation of the Euclidean distance of each automatically detected fiducial point from its manually identified position is less than 2.54 mm. We further show that the proposed Anthroface 3D recognition algorithm performs well (equal error rate of 1.98% and a rank 1 recognition rate of 96.8%), out performs three of the existing benchmark 3D face recognition algorithms, and is robust to the observed fiducial point localization errors.     

一种自动鲁棒的三维人脸重建方法

三维人脸模型已经广泛应用到视频电话、视频会议、影视制作、电脑游戏、人脸识别等多个领域。目前三维人脸建模一般使用多幅图像，且要求表情中性。本文提出了基于正、侧面任意表情三维人脸重建方法。首先对二维图像中的人脸进行特征提取，然后基于三维人脸统计模型，通过缩放、平移、旋转等方法，及全局和局部匹配，获得特定的三维人脸。基于二维图像中的人脸纹理信息，通过纹理映射，获得完整的三维人脸。通过对大量实际二维人脸图像的三维人脸重建，证实了该方法的有效性和鲁棒性。     

基于特征点表情变化的3维人脸识别

目的 为克服表情变化对3维人脸识别的影响,提出一种基于特征点提取局部区域特征的3维人脸识别方法。方法 首先,在深度图上应用2维图像的ASM(active shape model)算法粗略定位出人脸特征点,再根据Shape index特征在人脸点云上精确定位出特征点。其次,提取以鼻中为中心的一系列等测地轮廓线来表征人脸形状;然后,提取具有姿态不变性的Procrustean向量特征(距离和角度)作为识别特征;最后,对各条等测地轮廓线特征的分类结果进行了比较,并对分类结果进行决策级融合。结果 在FRGC V2.0人脸数据库分别进行特征点定位实验和识别实验,平均定位误差小于2.36 mm,Rank-1识别率为98.35%。结论 基于特征点的3维人脸识别方法,通过特征点在人脸近似刚性区域提取特征,有效避免了受表情影响较大的嘴部区域。实验证明该方法具有较高的识别精度,同时对姿态、表情变化具有一定的鲁棒性。     

基于脊谷特征提取的三维人脸识别

针对三维人脸数据庞大及识别效率低的问题,提出采用提取脊点及谷点表征人脸。脊点和谷点作为曲面局部区域内主曲率沿主方向变化的极值点,能够很好地表征三维人脸特征。对三维人脸提取脊点模型和谷点模型,通过对它们栅格化后生成对应的空间分布密度直方图实现人脸粗匹配,采用计算LTS-Hausdorff距离实现人脸的精确匹配。在GavabDB三维人脸库的实验结果表明,该方法具有较高的识别率。     

结合像素模式和特征点模式的实时表情识别

目的 目前2D表情识别方法对于一些混淆性较高的表情识别率不高并且容易受到人脸姿态、光照变化的影响,利用RGBD摄像头Kinect获取人脸3D特征点数据,提出了一种结合像素2D特征和特征点3D特征的实时表情识别方法。方法 首先,利用3种经典的LBP（局部二值模式）、Gabor滤波器、HOG（方向梯度直方图）提取了人脸表情2D像素特征,由于2D像素特征对于人脸表情描述能力的局限性,进一步提取了人脸特征点之间的角度、距离、法向量3种3D表情特征,以对不同表情的变化情况进行更加细致地描述。为了提高算法对混淆性高的表情识别能力并增加鲁棒性,将2D像素特征和3D特征点特征分别训练了3组随机森林模型,通过对6组随机森林分类器的分类结果加权组合,得到最终的表情类别。结果 在3D表情数据集Face3D上验证算法对9种不同表情的识别效果,结果表明结合2D像素特征和3D特征点特征的方法有利于表情的识别,平均识别率达到了84.7%,高出近几年提出的最优方法4.5%,而且相比单独地2D、3D融合特征,平均识别率分别提高了3.0%和5.8%,同时对于混淆性较强的愤怒、悲伤、害怕等表情识别率均高于80%,实时性也达到了10~15帧/s。结论 该方法结合表情图像的2D像素特征和3D特征点特征,提高了算法对于人脸表情变化的描述能力,而且针对混淆性较强的表情分类,对多组随机森林分类器的分类结果加权平均,有效地降低了混淆性表情之间的干扰,提高了算法的鲁棒性。实验结果表明了该方法相比普通的2D特征、3D特征等对于表情的识别不仅具有一定的优越性,同时还能保证算法的实时性。     

2D representation of facial surfaces for multi-pose 3D face recognition

The increasing availability of 3D facial data offers the potential to overcome the intrinsic difficulties faced by conventional face recognition using 2D images. Instead of extending 2D recognition algorithms for 3D purpose, this letter proposes a novel strategy for 3D face recognition from the perspective of representing each 3D facial surface with a 2D attribute image and taking the advantage of the advances in 2D face recognition. In our approach, each 3D facial surface is mapped homeomorphically onto a 2D lattice, where the value at each site is an attribute that represents the local 3D geometrical or textural properties on the surface, therefore invariant to pose changes. This lattice is then interpolated to generate a 2D attribute image. 3D face recognition can be achieved by applying the traditional 2D face recognition techniques to obtained attribute images. In this study, we chose the pose invariant local mean curvature calculated at each vertex on the 3D facial surface to construct the 2D attribute image and adopted the eigenface algorithm for attribute image recognition. We compared our approach to state-of-the-art 3D face recognition algorithms in the FRGC (Version 2.0), GavabDB and NPU3D database. Our results show that the proposed approach has improved the robustness to head pose variation and can produce more accurate 3D multi-pose face recognition.     

结合形状滤波和几何图像的3D人脸识别算法

表情变化是3维人脸精确识别面临的主要问题,为此提出一种新的对表情鲁棒的匹配方法。通过形状滤波器将人脸空域形状分成不同频率的3个部分：低频部分对应表情变化;高频部分代表白噪声;包含身份区分度最大的中频信息作为表情不变特征。再利用网格平面参数化,将人脸网格映射到边界为正四边形的平面区域内,经过线性插值采样得到3维形状的2维几何图像。最后通过图像匹配识别人脸。FRGC v2人脸数据库上的实验结果表明,使用形状滤波能显著提高算法的精度和鲁棒性。     

Human Face Recognition and the Face Image Set′s Topology

If we consider an n × n image as an n²-dimensional vector, then images of faces can be considered as points in this n²-dimensional image space. Our previous studies of physical transformations of the face, including translation, small rotations, and illumination changes, showed that the set of face images consists of relatively simple connected subregions in image space. Consequently linear matching techniques can be used to obtain reliable face recognition. However, for more general transformations, such as large rotations or scale changes, the face subregions become highly non-convex. We have therefore developed a scale-space matching technique that allows us to take advantage of knowledge about important geometrical transformations and about the topology of the face subregion in image space. While recognition of faces is the focus of this paper, the algorithm is sufficiently general to be applicable to a large variety of object recognition tasks     

Line-based face recognition under varying pose

Much research in human face recognition involves fronto-parallel face images, constrained rotations in and out of the plane, and operates under strict imaging conditions such as controlled illumination and limited facial expressions. Face recognition using multiple views in the viewing sphere is a more difficult task since face rotations out of the imaging plane can introduce occlusion of facial structures. In this paper, we propose a novel image-based face recognition algorithm that uses a set of random rectilinear line segments of 2D face image views as the underlying image representation, together with a nearest-neighbor classifier as the line matching scheme. The combination of 1D line segments exploits the inherent coherence in one or more 2D face image views in the viewing sphere. The algorithm achieves high generalization recognition rates for rotations both in and out of the plane, is robust to scaling, and is computationally efficient. Results show that the classification accuracy of the algorithm is superior compared with benchmark algorithms and is able to recognize test views in quasi-real-time     

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.     

基于侧面轮廓线和刚性区域的3维人脸识别

针对3维人脸识别问题,提出一种由粗到细的两步识别方法。首先结合几何约束与曲率信息定位特征点,根据特征点确定人脸对称面,提取人脸侧面轮廓线。利用轮廓线匹配作为排除算法,在识别初期迅速排除库集中不相似人脸以提高识别效率,剩余库集人脸采用一种具有表情鲁棒性的、基于区域的匹配方法进行识别,该方法自动切割人脸中受表情影响较小的刚性区域,并采用改进的迭代最近点算法对刚性区域进行匹配,为达到更好的识别精度,将各刚性区域的匹配结果采用加法规则融合。在3D_RMA人脸数据库的实验结果表明,该方法具有较好的实时性和鲁棒性。     

Robust content-based image indexing using contextual clues and automatic pseudofeedback

In this paper we present a robust information integration approach to identifying images of persons in large collections such as the Web. The underlying system relies on combining content analysis, which involves face detection and recognition, with context analysis, which involves extraction of text or HTML features. Two aspects are explored to test the robustness of this approach: sensitivity of the retrieval performance to the context analysis parameters and automatic construction of a facial image database via automatic pseudofeedback. For the sensitivity testing, we reevaluate system performance while varying context analysis parameters. This is compared with a learning approach where association rules among textual feature values and image relevance are learned via the CN2 algorithm. A face database is constructed by clustering after an initial retrieval relying on face detection and context analysis alone. Experimental results indicate that the approach is robust for identifying and indexing person images.Y. Alp Aslandogan: Correspondence to: