METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR CLASSIFYING A PERSON

• US 20100007726A1
• Filed: 10/17/2007
• Published: 01/14/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 10/19/2006
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Koninklijke Philips Electronics N.V. (Koninklijke Philips N.V.)
• Original Assignee: Koninklijke Philips Electronics N.V. (Koninklijke Philips N.V.)
• Inventors: Weda, Johannes, Shrestha, Prarthana, Barbieri, Mauro, Agnihotri, Lalitha, Campanella, Marco Emanuele
• Application Number:
  US12/445,479
• Publication Number:
  US 20100007726A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 348/78
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 40/16 Human faces, e.g. facial parts, sketches or expressions
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 40/178 estimating age from face image; using age information for improving recognition
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 40/193 Preprocessing; Feature extraction

Abstract

Photo or video content of a person is acquired (401). A dimension of at least one iris of a person such as radius of the iris is measured (405, 411). A dimension of the face of the person, such as width of the face, is measured. The person is then classified (413) as an adult or child on the basis of a ratio of the dimension of the face and the dimension of the iris.

Claims

1. A method for classifying a person, the method comprising the steps of:

determining a dimension of at least one iris of a person;

determining a dimension of the face of said person; and

classifying said person on the basis of a ratio of said determined dimension of the face of said person and said determined dimension of said at least one iris of said person.

2. A method according to claim 1, wherein the step of classifying said person comprises:

identifying said person as a child or adult.

3. A method according to claim 2, wherein a child is identified if said ratio of said determined dimension of the face of said person and said determined dimension of said at least one iris of said person does not exceed a predefined threshold.

4. A method according to claim 1, wherein the method further comprises:

determining at least one of skin color, iris color, voice pitch and content of speech of said person; and

wherein the step of classifying said person further comprises;

classifying said person on basis of at least one of determined skin color, iris color, voice pitch and content of speech of said person.

5. A method according to claim 1, wherein the step of determining a dimension of at least one iris of said person comprises:

locating an area of the face of said person occupied by the eyes of said person.

6. A method according to claim 5, wherein the step of determining a dimension of at least one iris of said person further comprises:

iteratively locating at least two edge sections of said at least one iris of said person in said located area;

estimating a circle including said at least one edge sections; and

determining a dimension of said circle.

7. A method according to claim 5, wherein the step of determining a dimension of the face of said person comprises:

determining a distance between the eyes of said person in said located area.

8. A method according to claim 5, wherein the step of determining a dimension of the face of said person comprises:

determining a width of an area enclosing the face of said person.

9. A method according to claim 1, wherein the method further comprises:

capturing a plurality of images of said person; and

selecting one of said plurality of images showing both eyes of said person; and

detecting the face of a person captured in said selected image.

10. A method according to claim 1, the step of determining a dimension of at least one iris of said person further comprises:

determining a radius of at least one iris of said detected face.

11. A method for controlling a device on the basis of the classification of a person, the classification being carried out by the method according to claim 1.

12. A computer program product comprising a plurality of program code portions for carrying out the method according to claim 1.

13. Apparatus for classifying a person, the apparatus comprising:

means for determining a dimension of at least one iris of a person;

means for determining a dimension of the face of said person; and

a classifier for classifying said person on the basis of a ratio of said determined dimension of the face of said person and said determined dimension of said at least one iris of said person.

14. Apparatus according to claim 13 further comprising means for capturing an image of said person and a detector for detecting the face of said person captured by said image.