Face or other object detection including template matching

• US 8,995,715 B2
• Filed: 10/26/2011
• Issued: 03/31/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 10/26/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: FotoNation Limited (Adeia Inc.)
• Original Assignee: FotoNation Limited (Adeia Inc.)
• Inventors: Petrescu, Stefan, Bigioi, Petronel, Corcoran, Peter, Gangea, Mihnea, Sultana, Bogdan, Nicolau, Radu, Ursachi, Vlad Ionut, Zaharia, Corneliu, Fulop, Szabolcs
• Primary Examiner(s): Park, Chan
• Assistant Examiner(s): Kholdebarin, Iman K
• Application Number:
  US13/282,458
• Publication Number:
  US 20120106790A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,252 Days
• Field of Search: 382/103, 382/108, 382/190, 382/278
• US Class Current: 382/103
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 10/60 relating to illumination properties, e.g. using a reflectance or lighting model
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 10/75 Organisation of the matching processes, e.g. simultaneous or sequential comparisons of image or video features; Coarse-fine approaches, e.g. multi-scale approaches; using context analysis; Selection of dictionaries
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 10/94 Hardware or software architectures specially adapted for image or video understanding
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 40/161 Detection; Localisation; Normalisation
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 40/164 using holistic features

Abstract

A template matching module is configured to program a processor to apply multiple differently-tuned object detection classifier sets in parallel to a digital image to determine one or more of an object type, configuration, orientation, pose or illumination condition, and to dynamically switch between object detection templates to match a determined object type, configuration, orientation, pose, blur, exposure and/or directional illumination condition.

Claims

1. A digital image acquisition device, comprising:

an optoelectronic system for acquiring a digital image;

a processor;

a plurality of object detection templates, wherein each object detection template of the plurality of object detection templates is;

tuned for high detection, low rejection ratios, and

trained to detect a corresponding object that has certain characteristics that are reflected in the template;

a plurality of high-quality object detection templates tuned for low detection, high rejection ratios; and

a template matching module configured to;

apply the plurality of object detection templates in parallel to data of the digital image to determine one or more particular characteristics of either the digital image or an object in the digital image;

wherein the one or more particular characteristics of the digital image comprise one or more of;

an object type,

a configuration,

an orientation,

a pose,

a blur,

an exposure, or

an illumination condition;

based on the one or more particular characteristics, select one or more high-quality object detection templates from the plurality of high-quality object detection templates;

wherein the one or more high-quality object detection templates are different from the plurality of object detection templates;

a filtering module configured to;

use the one or more high-quality object detection templates to determine whether any of the one or more particular characteristics has been falsely identified; and

filter out, from the one or more particular characteristics, any characteristics that were determined to have been falsely identified.

2. The device of claim 1, wherein one or more of the plurality of object detection templates comprise a subset of a full classifier set including an initial 3-8 classifiers.

3. The device of claim 1, wherein the plurality of object detection templates comprise one or more classifier sets tuned to detect multiple different selected objects or to recognize faces of multiple different specific persons, or both.

4. The device of claim 1, wherein the template matching module comprises a dedicated hardware component.

5. The device of claim 1, wherein the template matching module is configured to dynamically switch between the plurality of object detection templates based on a frame to frame analysis.

6. The device of claim 1, wherein the template matching module is configured to dynamically switch between the plurality of object detection templates selectively on a local scale.

7. The device of claim 1, further comprising a hardware acceleration block configured to receive additional data acquired from the optoelectronic system and to provide one or more hardware acceleration maps to a memory, and the template matching module is further configured to retrieve luminance values, grayscale values, or Y data, or combinations thereof, from the memory.

8. The device of claim 1, wherein at least one of the plurality object detection templates comprises a face detection classifier set.

9. An object detection system, comprising:

an optoelectronic system for acquiring a digital image;

a processor;

a plurality of object detection templates, wherein each object detection template of the plurality of object detection templates is;

tuned for high detection, low rejection ratios, and

trained to detect a corresponding object that has certain characteristics that are reflected in the template;

a plurality of high-quality object detection templates tuned for low detection, high rejection ratios;

a template matching module configured to;

apply the plurality of object detection templates in parallel to data of the digital image to determine one or more particular characteristics of either the digital image or an object in the digital image;

wherein the one or more particular characteristics of the digital image comprise one or more of;

an object type,

a configuration,

an orientation,

a pose,

a blur,

an exposure, or

an illumination condition;

based on the one or more particular characteristics, select one or more high-quality object detection templates from the plurality of high-quality object detection templates;

wherein the one or more high-quality object detection templates are different from the plurality of object detection templates; and

a filtering module configured to;

use the one or more high-quality object detection templates to determine whether any of the one or more particular characteristics has been falsely identified; and

filter out, from the one or more particular characteristics, any characteristics that were determined to have been falsely identified.

10. The system of claim 9, wherein at least one of the plurality of object detection templates comprises a face detection classifier set.

11. The system of claim 9, further comprising:

a hardware acceleration block configured to receive the digital image and to provide one or more hardware acceleration maps to a memory, from which the template matching module is further configured to retrieve luminance values, grayscale values or Y data, or combinations thereof.

12. A method of object detection in an acquired digital image, comprising:

acquiring a digital image;

applying a plurality of object detection templates in parallel to data of the digital image to identify one or more particular characteristics of either the digital image or an object in the digital image;

wherein each object detection template of the plurality of object detection templates is;

tuned for high detection, low rejection ratios, and

trained to detect a corresponding object that has certain characteristics that are reflected in the template;

wherein the one or more particular characteristics of the digital image comprise one or more of

an object type,

a configuration,

an orientation,

a pose,

a blur,

an exposure, or

an illumination condition;

based on the one or more particular characteristics, select one or more high-quality object detection templates from a plurality of high-quality object detection templates;

wherein the plurality of high-quality object detection templates are tuned for low detection, high rejection ratios;

wherein the one or more high-quality object detection templates are different from the plurality of object detection templates;

use the one or more high-quality object detection templates to determine whether any of the one or more particular characteristics has been falsely identified; and

filtering out, from the one or more particular characteristics, any characteristics that were determined to have been falsely identified; and

wherein the method is performed by one or more computing devices.

13. The method of claim 12, wherein one or more of the plurality object detection templates comprise a subset of a full classifier set including an initial 3-8 classifiers.

14. The method of claim 12, wherein the plurality object detection templates tuned to detect multiple different selected objects or to recognize faces of multiple different specific persons, or both.

15. The method of claim 12, wherein at least one of the plurality object detection templates comprises a face detection classifier set.

16. The method of claim 12, wherein the template matching module comprises a dedicated hardware component.

17. The method of claim 12, further comprising dynamically switching between the object detection templates based on a frame to frame analysis.

18. The method of claim 12, further comprising dynamically switching between the object detection templates selectively on a local scale.

19. The method of claim 12, further comprising providing the digital image and one or more hardware acceleration maps to a memory, and retrieving, from the memory, luminance values, grayscale values, or Y data, or combinations thereof.