Resolution-Aware 3D Morphable Model

The 3D Morphable Model (3DMM) is currently receiving considerable attention for human face analysis. Most existing work focuses on fitting a 3DMM to high resolution images. However, in many applications, fitting a 3DMM to low-resolution images is also important. In this paper, we propose a Resolution-Aware 3DMM (RA- 3DMM), which consists of 3 different resolution 3DMMs: High-Resolution 3DMM (HR- 3DMM), Medium-Resolution 3DMM (MR-3DMM) and Low-Resolution 3DMM (LR-3DMM). RA-3DMM can automatically select the best model to fit the input images of different resolutions. The multi-resolution model was evaluated in experiments conducted on PIE and XM2VTS databases. The experimental results verified that HR- 3DMM achieves the best performance for input image of high resolution, and MR- 3DMM and LR-3DMM worked best for medium and low resolution input images, respectively. A model selection strategy incorporated in the RA-3DMM is proposed based on these results. The RA-3DMM model has been applied to pose correction of face images ranging from high to low resolution. The face verification results obtained with the pose-corrected images show considerable performance improvement over the result without pose correction in all resolution

Resolutionaware 3D morphable model

Abstract The 3D Morphable Model (3DMM) is currently receiving considerable attention for human face analysis. Most existing work focuses on fitting a 3DMM to high resolution images. However, in many applications, fitting a 3DMM to low-resolution images is also important. In this paper, we propose a Resolution-Aware 3DMM (RA-3DMM), which consists of 3 different resolution 3DMMs: High-Resolution 3DMM (HR-3DMM), Medium-Resolution 3DMM (MR-3DMM) and Low-Resolution 3DMM (LR-3DMM). RA-3DMM can automatically select the best model to fit the input images of different resolutions. The multi-resolution model was evaluated in experiments conducted on PIE and XM2VTS databases. The experimental results verified that HR-3DMM achieves the best performance for input image of high resolution, and MR-3DMM and LR-3DMM worked best for medium and low resolution input images, respectively. A model selection strategy incorporated in the RA-3DMM is proposed based on these results. The RA-3DMM model has been applied to pose correction of face images ranging from high to low resolution. The face verification results obtained with the pose-corrected images show considerable performance improvement over the result without pose correction in all resolutions

3D morphable model fitting for low-resolution facial images

This paper proposes a new algorithm for fitting a 3D morphable face model on low-resolution (LR) facial images. We analyse the criterion commonly used by the main fitting algorithms and by comparing with an image formation model, show that this criterion is only valid if the resolution of the input image is high. We then derive an imaging model to describe the process of LR image formation given the 3D model. Finally, we use this imaging model to improve the fitting criterion. Experimental results show that our algorithm significantly improves fitting results on LR images and yields similar parameters to those that would have been obtained if the input image had a higher resolution. We also show that our algorithm can be used for face recognition in low-resolutions where the conventional fitting algorithms fail

On using gait to enhance frontal face extraction

Visual surveillance finds increasing deployment formonitoring urban environments. Operators need to be able to determine identity from surveillance images and often use face recognition for this purpose. In surveillance environments, it is necessary to handle pose variation of the human head, low frame rate, and low resolution input images. We describe the first use of gait to enable face acquisition and recognition, by analysis of 3-D head motion and gait trajectory, with super-resolution analysis. We use region- and distance-based refinement of head pose estimation. We develop a direct mapping to relate the 2-D image with a 3-D model. In gait trajectory analysis, we model the looming effect so as to obtain the correct face region. Based on head position and the gait trajectory, we can reconstruct high-quality frontal face images which are demonstrated to be suitable for face recognition. The contributions of this research include the construction of a 3-D model for pose estimation from planar imagery and the first use of gait information to enhance the face extraction process allowing for deployment in surveillance scenario

Bayesian nonparametric modeling and its applications

University of Technology Sydney. Faculty of Engineering and Information Technology.Bayesian nonparametric methods (or nonparametric Bayesian methods) take the benefit of unlimited parameters and unbounded dimensions to reduce the constraints on the parameter assumption and avoid over-fitting implicitly. They have proven to be extremely useful due to their flexibility and applicability to a wide range of problems. In this thesis, we study the Bayesain nonparametric theory with Lévy process and completely random measures (CRM). Several Bayesian nonparametric techniques are presented for computer vision and pattern recognition problems. In particular, our research and contributions focus on the following problems. Firstly, we propose a novel example-based face hallucination method, based on a nonparametric Bayesian model with the assumption that all human faces have similar local pixel structures. We use distance dependent Chinese restaurant process (ddCRP) to cluster the low-resolution (LR) face image patches and give a matrix-normal prior for learning the mapping dictionaries from LR to the corresponding high-resolution (HR) patches. The ddCRP is employed to assist in learning the clusters and mapping dictionaries without setting the number of clusters in advance, such that each dictionary can better reflect the details of the image patches. Experimental results show that our method is efficient and can achieve competitive performance for face hallucination problem. Secondly, we address sparse nonnegative matrix factorization (NMF) problems by using a graph-regularized Beta process (BP) model. BP is a nonparametric method which lets itself naturally model sparse binary matrices with an infinite number of columns. In order to maintain the positivity of the factorized matrices, an exponential prior is proposed. The graph in our model regularizes the similar training samples having similar sparse coefficients. In this way, the structure of the data can be better represented. We demonstrate the effectiveness of our method on different databases. Thirdly, we consider face recognition problem by a nonparametric Bayesian model combined with Sparse Coding Recognition (SCR) framework. In order to get an appropriate dictionary with sparse coefficients, we use a graph regularized Beta process prior for the dictionary learning. The graph in our model regularizes training samples in a same class to have similar sparse coefficients and share similar dictionary atoms. In this way, the proposed method is more robust to noise and occlusion of the testing images. The models in this thesis can also find many other applications like super-resolution, image recognition, text analysis, image compressive sensing and so on

3D Face Reconstruction from Light Field Images: A Model-free Approach

Reconstructing 3D facial geometry from a single RGB image has recently instigated wide research interest. However, it is still an ill-posed problem and most methods rely on prior models hence undermining the accuracy of the recovered 3D faces. In this paper, we exploit the Epipolar Plane Images (EPI) obtained from light field cameras and learn CNN models that recover horizontal and vertical 3D facial curves from the respective horizontal and vertical EPIs. Our 3D face reconstruction network (FaceLFnet) comprises a densely connected architecture to learn accurate 3D facial curves from low resolution EPIs. To train the proposed FaceLFnets from scratch, we synthesize photo-realistic light field images from 3D facial scans. The curve by curve 3D face estimation approach allows the networks to learn from only 14K images of 80 identities, which still comprises over 11 Million EPIs/curves. The estimated facial curves are merged into a single pointcloud to which a surface is fitted to get the final 3D face. Our method is model-free, requires only a few training samples to learn FaceLFnet and can reconstruct 3D faces with high accuracy from single light field images under varying poses, expressions and lighting conditions. Comparison on the BU-3DFE and BU-4DFE datasets show that our method reduces reconstruction errors by over 20% compared to recent state of the art

Unobtrusive and pervasive video-based eye-gaze tracking

Eye-gaze tracking has long been considered a desktop technology that finds its use inside the traditional office setting, where the operating conditions may be controlled. Nonetheless, recent advancements in mobile technology and a growing interest in capturing natural human behaviour have motivated an emerging interest in tracking eye movements within unconstrained real-life conditions, referred to as pervasive eye-gaze tracking. This critical review focuses on emerging passive and unobtrusive video-based eye-gaze tracking methods in recent literature, with the aim to identify different research avenues that are being followed in response to the challenges of pervasive eye-gaze tracking. Different eye-gaze tracking approaches are discussed in order to bring out their strengths and weaknesses, and to identify any limitations, within the context of pervasive eye-gaze tracking, that have yet to be considered by the computer vision community.peer-reviewe