Gender Identification Method

• US 20070274572A1
• Filed: 01/20/2005
• Published: 11/29/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 01/22/2004
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Nihondensikougaku Company Limited
• Original Assignee: Nihondensikougaku Company Limited
• Inventors: Nishino, Satoshi
• Granted Patent: US 7,899,218 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 382/118
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/015 By temperature mapping of body part
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/1176 Recognition of faces
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/6825 Hand
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 40/172 Classification, e.g. identification
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 40/70 Multimodal biometrics, e.g. combining information from different biometric modalities

Abstract

Infrared face image data is obtained (11) on a person (P) who is a subject of discrimination using an image signal (VDA) from a television camera (2A); the cheek region and jaw region temperatures of the subject (P) are sampled based on the infrared face image data; the averages of the temperatures are calculated (15, 16); cheek data/jaw data is calculated (17); and a cheek emphasized variance value is calculated (18). The cheek data/jaw data and cheek emphasized variance value are mapped on an XY plane (19), and gender discrimination of the person (P) is conducted based on the result. In addition, gender discrimination is conducted using the cheek data/jaw data (21) and gender discrimination is conducted using the cheek emphasized variance value (22), and gender identification is conducted in accordance with agreement between two or more of the multiple gender discrimination results (24).

Claims

1. A gender identification method characterized in utilizing body surface temperature of a human.

11. The gender identification method as claimed in claim 1, wherein gender discrimination is conducted by applying temperature sampling templates to facial regions of a human and subjecting the temperatures of the sampled regions to statistical processing.

12. The gender identification method as claimed in claim 1, wherein gender discrimination is conducted by applying a temperature sampling template to a hand region of a human and subjecting the temperature of the sampled region to statistical processing.

13. The gender identification method as claimed in claim 1, wherein gender discrimination is conducted by applying temperature sampling templates to facial and hand regions of a human, subjecting the temperature of the sampled regions to statistical processing with the terms for calculating the variance thereof changed from the second power to the fourth power, and using the so-obtained variance values for the gender discrimination.

14. The gender identification method as claimed in claim 1, wherein gender discrimination is conducted using in combination data obtained by applying temperature sampling templates to facial regions of a human and subjecting the temperatures of the sampled regions to statistical processing and data obtained by applying a temperature sampling template to a hand region of the human and subjecting the temperature of the sampled region to statistical processing.

16. A gender identification method based on the method of claim 1, which is unaffected by any eyeglass region when the subject is wearing glasses.

17. A gender identification method that conducts gender discrimination using the color of eyeshadow, eyeliner or mascara around the eye of a human, of the eyebrow itself or mascara around it, of cheek rouge applied to the cheek, of lipstick applied to the lips or of facial skin, or the color of skin blackened by beard from cheek to jaw or moustache or of the beard/moustache itself in combination with a method of claim 1.

2. A gender identification method characterized in conducting gender discrimination based on the temperature of a facial region of a human.

3. The gender identification method as claimed in claim 2, wherein the facial region is the cheek region.

4. The gender identification method as claimed in claim 3, wherein gender discrimination is conducted based on the temperature of the cheek region.

5. The gender identification method as claimed in claim 3, wherein gender discrimination is conducted based on the temperature and temperature variance of the cheek region.

6. The gender identification method as claimed in claim 5, wherein the temperature variance is a variance value based on

7. The gender identification method as claimed in claim 5, wherein the temperature variance is an emphasized variance value based on the formula

8. The gender identification method as claimed in claim 2, wherein the facial region is the cheek region and jaw region.

9. The gender identification method as claimed in claim 8, wherein gender discrimination is conducted based on the ratio of the temperatures of the cheek region and jaw region.

15. A gender identification method comprising three methods among the methods of claim 2, wherein when the results are the same between two methods thereamong, that result is adopted as the discrimination result.

10. A gender identification method characterized in that gender discrimination is conducted based on a combination of the temperatures of facial regions and hand regions of a human.

18. A gender identification method for discriminating whether a human subject of discrimination is male or female, which gender identification method is characterized in obtaining infrared face image data on the subject, sampling the temperature of the cheek region of the subject based on the infrared face image data, and discriminating based on the sampled cheek region temperature whether the subject is male or female.

19. The gender identification method as claimed in claim 18, wherein the temperature of the jaw region of the subject is also sampled based on the infrared face image data, and whether the subject is male or female is discriminated based on the sampled cheek region temperature and jaw region temperature.

20. The gender identification method as claimed in claim 18, further comprising the steps of obtaining visible-light image data on the subject and discriminating whether the subject is male or female based on the blackness level of the moustache region of the subject ascertained from the visible-light image data, thereby conducting gender identification based on multiple gender discrimination results.

21. The gender identification method as claimed in claim 18, further comprising the steps of obtaining temperature data on the palm of the subject and discriminating whether the subject is male or female based on the palm temperature data, thereby conducting gender identification based on multiple gender discrimination results.

22. A gender identification method for discriminating whether a human subject of discrimination is male or female, which gender identification method comprises:

obtaining infrared face image data on the subject using an image signal from a television camera;

sampling the cheek region and jaw region temperatures of the subject based on the infrared face image data;

calculating the averages of the temperatures;

calculating cheek data/jaw data and a cheek emphasized variance value;

mapping the cheek data/jaw data and cheek emphasized variance value on an XY plane;

conducting first gender discrimination;

conducting second gender discrimination using the cheek data/jaw data and third gender discrimination using the cheek emphasized variance value; and

conducting gender identification of the subject in accordance with agreement between two or more of the first to third gender discrimination results.