Face detection method based on skin color and pattern match

• US 20060029265A1
• Filed: 08/03/2005
• Published: 02/09/2006
• Est. Priority Date: 08/04/2004
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd.
• Original Assignee: Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd.
• Inventors: Kee, Seokcheol, Kim, Jungbae, Moon, Youngsu, Kim, Jiyeun
• Application Number:
  US11/195,611
• Publication Number:
  US 20060029265A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 382/118
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 10/446 using Haar-like filters, e.g. using integral image techniques
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 40/162 using pixel segmentation or colour matching

Abstract

A face detection method based on a skin color and a pattern match. A face detection method includes: detecting skin color pixels using color information of an image; calculating a proportion of the skin color pixels occupying each predetermined sub-window of the image; selecting ones of the predetermined sub-windows as face candidates when the proportions of the skin color pixels in the ones of the sub-windows are at least equal to a threshold value; and determining whether any of the face candidates is a face and storing a location of the face.

Claims

1. A face detection method comprising:

detecting skin color pixels using color information of an image;

calculating a proportion of the skin color pixels occupying each predetermined sub-window of the image;

selecting ones of the predetermined sub-windows as face candidates when the proportions of the skin color pixels in the ones of the sub-windows are at least equal to a threshold value; and

determining whether any of the face candidates is a face and storing a location of the face.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the color information of the image is obtained by converting RGB color coordinates of the image to YCrCb color coordinates.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the skin color pixels are detected when the skin color pixels satisfies the following conditions:

If (Y<

Y⁻

or Y>

Y⁺ or Cb<

Cb⁻

or Cb>

Cb⁺ or Cr<

Cr⁻

or Cr>

Cr⁺)

then non-skin color.

If (Y>

Y* and (Cr−

Cb)>

C*)

then non-skin color.

Otherwise, skin-color.

Y⁻

, Y⁺, Y*, Cb⁻

, Cb⁺, Cr⁻

, Cr⁺, C* denoting constants.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the sub-window of a minimum size is shifted to scan an overall region of the image.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein the sub-window is shifted to scan the overall region of the image while increasing by a predetermined rate from the minimum size to the size corresponding to the overall region of the image.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the skin color pixels are calculated using an integral image.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein each face candidate is determined to be a face when a plurality of classifiers is applied to a region corresponding to the face candidate, a weighted sum of classification results output from the classifiers is obtained, and the weighted sum is greater than a second threshold value.

8. The method of claim 7, wherein each of the classifiers determines a region of interest as a face region when a predetermined classification feature is applied to the region of interest among the face candidates, luminance values of the region of interest are added or subtracted depending on the applied classification feature, and the added or subtracted result is greater than a third threshold value.

16. The method of claim 1, wherein the determining comprises performing pattern matching using an Adaboost algorithm on each sub-window determined to be a face candidate.

9. A face detection method in a current frame of a moving image, comprising:

determining whether there is motion in the current frame when a face was detected in a previous frame;

detecting a face in a tracking window in the current frame determined to be centered around a location of the face detected in the previous frame when no motion is detected; and

storing the face location of the detected face in the current frame.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein the presence of motion is determined by detecting temporal edges for a predetermined number of consecutive frames and determining that the temporal edges are greater than a threshold value.

11. The method of claim 10, wherein the temporal edges are detected by applying a Laplacian-of-Gaussian filter to the frames.

12. The method of claim 9, wherein the face is detected by scanning the entire current frame when it is determined that there is any motion in the current frame.

13. The method of claim 9, wherein the size of the tracking window is greater than that of the face detected at the location in the current frame corresponding to the location of the face detected in the previous frame.

14. The method of claim 9, further comprising, when no face is detected in the tracking window,

detecting skin color pixels at a location in the current frame corresponding to the location of the face detected in the previous frame using color information of the current frame;

calculating a proportion of the skin color pixels occupying a predetermined sub-window centered around the location in the current frame; and

determining the sub-window to be a face when the proportion of the skin color pixels is greater than or equal to a predetermined threshold value, and storing a face location.

15. The method of claim 14, wherein the face is detected by scanning an entirety of the current frame when no face is detected at the location in the current frame corresponding to the location of the face detected in the previous frame.

17. The method of claim 9, wherein the determining comprises performing pattern matching using an Adaboost algorithm on each sub-window determined to be a face candidate.

18. A computer-readable storage medium encoded with processing instructions for causing a processor to execute a method of detecting a face, the method comprising:

detecting skin color pixels using color information of an image;

calculating a proportion of the skin color pixels occupying each predetermined sub-window of the image;

selecting ones of the predetermined sub-windows as face candidate when the proportion of the skin color pixels in the ones of the sub-windows are at least equal to a threshold value; and

determining whether any of the face candidate is a face and storing a location of the face.

19. A computer-readable storage medium encoded with processing instructions for causing a processor to execute a face detection method in a current frame among consecutive image frames, comprising:

determining whether there is motion in the current frame when a face was detected in a previous frame;

detecting a face in a tracking window determined to be centered around a location of the face detected in the previous frame when no motion is detected; and

storing a location of the detected face in the current frame.