79,314 research outputs found
Active orientation models for face alignment in-the-wild
We present Active Orientation Models (AOMs), generative models of facial shape and appearance, which extend the well-known paradigm of Active Appearance Models (AAMs) for the case of generic face alignment under unconstrained conditions. Robustness stems from the fact that the proposed AOMs employ a statistically robust appearance model based on the principal components of image gradient orientations. We show that when incorporated within standard optimization frameworks for AAM learning and fitting, this kernel Principal Component Analysis results in robust algorithms for model fitting. At the same time, the resulting optimization problems maintain the same computational cost. As a result, the main similarity of AOMs with AAMs is the computational complexity. In particular, the project-out version of AOMs is as computationally efficient as the standard project-out inverse compositional algorithm, which is admittedly one of the fastest algorithms for fitting AAMs. We verify experimentally that: 1) AOMs generalize well to unseen variations and 2) outperform all other state-of-the-art AAM methods considered by a large margin. This performance improvement brings AOMs at least in par with other contemporary methods for face alignment. Finally, we provide MATLAB code at http://ibug.doc.ic.ac.uk/resources
Fast algorithms for fitting active appearance models to unconstrained images
Fitting algorithms for Active Appearance Models (AAMs) are usually considered to be robust but slow or fast but less able to generalize well to unseen variations. In this paper, we look into AAM fitting algorithms and make the following orthogonal contributions: We present a simple “project-out” optimization framework that unifies and revises the most well-known optimization problems and solutions in AAMs. Based on this framework, we describe robust simultaneous AAM fitting algorithms the complexity of which is not prohibitive for current systems. We then go on one step further and propose a new approximate project-out AAM fitting algorithm which we coin extended project-out inverse compositional (E-POIC). In contrast to current algorithms, E-POIC is both efficient and robust. Next, we describe a part-based AAM employing a translational motion model, which results in superior fitting and convergence properties. We also show that the proposed AAMs, when trained “in-the-wild” using SIFT descriptors, perform surprisingly well even for the case of unseen unconstrained images. Via a number of experiments on unconstrained human and animal face databases, we show that our combined contributions largely bridge the gap between exact and current approximate methods for AAM fitting and perform comparably with state-of-the-art face alignment algorithms
Deformable face ensemble alignment with robust grouped-L1 anchors
Many methods exist at the moment for deformable face fitting. A drawback to nearly all these approaches is that they are (i) noisy in terms of landmark positions, and (ii) the noise is biased across frames (i.e. the misalignment is toward common directions across all frames). In this paper we propose a grouped -norm anchored method for simultaneously aligning an ensemble of deformable face images stemming from the same subject, given noisy heterogeneous landmark estimates. Impressive alignment performance improvement and refinement is obtained using very weak initialization as "anchors"
Efficient illumination independent appearance-based face tracking
One of the major challenges that visual tracking algorithms face nowadays is being
able to cope with changes in the appearance of the target during tracking. Linear
subspace models have been extensively studied and are possibly the most popular
way of modelling target appearance. We introduce a linear subspace representation
in which the appearance of a face is represented by the addition of two approxi-
mately independent linear subspaces modelling facial expressions and illumination
respectively. This model is more compact than previous bilinear or multilinear ap-
proaches. The independence assumption notably simplifies system training. We only
require two image sequences. One facial expression is subject to all possible illumina-
tions in one sequence and the face adopts all facial expressions under one particular
illumination in the other. This simple model enables us to train the system with
no manual intervention. We also revisit the problem of efficiently fitting a linear
subspace-based model to a target image and introduce an additive procedure for
solving this problem. We prove that Matthews and Baker’s Inverse Compositional
Approach makes a smoothness assumption on the subspace basis that is equiva-
lent to Hager and Belhumeur’s, which worsens convergence. Our approach differs
from Hager and Belhumeur’s additive and Matthews and Baker’s compositional ap-
proaches in that we make no smoothness assumptions on the subspace basis. In the
experiments conducted we show that the model introduced accurately represents
the appearance variations caused by illumination changes and facial expressions.
We also verify experimentally that our fitting procedure is more accurate and has
better convergence rate than the other related approaches, albeit at the expense of
a slight increase in computational cost. Our approach can be used for tracking a
human face at standard video frame rates on an average personal computer
A Unified Framework for Compositional Fitting of Active Appearance Models
Active Appearance Models (AAMs) are one of the most popular and
well-established techniques for modeling deformable objects in computer vision.
In this paper, we study the problem of fitting AAMs using Compositional
Gradient Descent (CGD) algorithms. We present a unified and complete view of
these algorithms and classify them with respect to three main characteristics:
i) cost function; ii) type of composition; and iii) optimization method.
Furthermore, we extend the previous view by: a) proposing a novel Bayesian cost
function that can be interpreted as a general probabilistic formulation of the
well-known project-out loss; b) introducing two new types of composition,
asymmetric and bidirectional, that combine the gradients of both image and
appearance model to derive better conver- gent and more robust CGD algorithms;
and c) providing new valuable insights into existent CGD algorithms by
reinterpreting them as direct applications of the Schur complement and the
Wiberg method. Finally, in order to encourage open research and facilitate
future comparisons with our work, we make the implementa- tion of the
algorithms studied in this paper publicly available as part of the Menpo
Project.Comment: 39 page
A Comprehensive Performance Evaluation of Deformable Face Tracking "In-the-Wild"
Recently, technologies such as face detection, facial landmark localisation
and face recognition and verification have matured enough to provide effective
and efficient solutions for imagery captured under arbitrary conditions
(referred to as "in-the-wild"). This is partially attributed to the fact that
comprehensive "in-the-wild" benchmarks have been developed for face detection,
landmark localisation and recognition/verification. A very important technology
that has not been thoroughly evaluated yet is deformable face tracking
"in-the-wild". Until now, the performance has mainly been assessed
qualitatively by visually assessing the result of a deformable face tracking
technology on short videos. In this paper, we perform the first, to the best of
our knowledge, thorough evaluation of state-of-the-art deformable face tracking
pipelines using the recently introduced 300VW benchmark. We evaluate many
different architectures focusing mainly on the task of on-line deformable face
tracking. In particular, we compare the following general strategies: (a)
generic face detection plus generic facial landmark localisation, (b) generic
model free tracking plus generic facial landmark localisation, as well as (c)
hybrid approaches using state-of-the-art face detection, model free tracking
and facial landmark localisation technologies. Our evaluation reveals future
avenues for further research on the topic.Comment: E. Antonakos and P. Snape contributed equally and have joint second
authorshi
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