Method and Apparatus For Facial Image Acquisition and Recognition
First Claim
1. A method for person identification by biometric analysis of facial images, comprising the steps of:
- starting a face recognition apparatus;
providing an active lights to illuminate a target face when an user approaches said face recognition apparatus;
providing an image acquisition unit to capture a plurality of images from a target face illuminated by an active lights;
sending at least one facial image acquired by said image capturing unit to a data processing unit, and detecting and/or localizing a positions of eyes and/or said face by said data processing unit;
cropping a portion of said facial image and extracting facial feature from said portion of said facial image by said data processing unit;
comparing facial feature with that of previously extracted and stored in a face database;
outputting a recognition result obtained from said comparing step.
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Abstract
A method and apparatus for facial image acquisition and/or recognition used for person identification. In infrared face image acquisition, near infrared (NIR) images of a face are captured by an imaging unit with the face illuminated by active NIR lights; an NIR optical filter is used in the imaging unit to minimize visible lights in environments while allowing NIR lights to pass through. NIR face images thus acquired provides good image quality for the purpose of face recognition. In face recognition, eyes are localized in NIR face image(s) quickly and accurately by detecting specular highlight reflection in each eye, whereby face is then localized. The invention effectively problems caused by environmental lights, and leads to accurate and fast face recognition under variable lighting conditions. Moreover, the methods use a non-intrusive and user-friendly way of active lighting for face image acquisition and recognition because the NIR lights are in the invisible spectrum.
202 Citations
26 Claims
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1. A method for person identification by biometric analysis of facial images, comprising the steps of:
starting a face recognition apparatus; providing an active lights to illuminate a target face when an user approaches said face recognition apparatus; providing an image acquisition unit to capture a plurality of images from a target face illuminated by an active lights; sending at least one facial image acquired by said image capturing unit to a data processing unit, and detecting and/or localizing a positions of eyes and/or said face by said data processing unit; cropping a portion of said facial image and extracting facial feature from said portion of said facial image by said data processing unit; comparing facial feature with that of previously extracted and stored in a face database; outputting a recognition result obtained from said comparing step. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26)
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8. A method for facial image acquisition, comprising the steps of:
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Providing a plurality of active lighting to illuminate a face area, Providing an image capturing unit for capturing a facial image of a target face, and sending said facial image to a data processing unit used for localizing and recognizing said target face; Wherein a total energy of said active lighting and said environmental lighting on said face area is greater than that of environmental lighting. - View Dependent Claims (9, 10, 11, 12)
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Specification