Analysis of RGB-D camera technologies for supporting different facial usage scenarios

Recently a wide variety of applications has been developed integrating 3D functionalities. Advantages given by the possibility of relying on depth information allows the developers to design new algorithms and to improve the existing ones. In particular, for what concerns face morphology, 3D has led to the possibility to obtain face depth maps highly close to reality and consequently an improvement of the starting point for further analysis such as Face Detection, Face Authentication, Face Identification and Face Expression Recognition. The development of the aforementioned applications would have been impossible without the progress of sensor technologies for obtaining 3D information. Several solutions have been adopted over time. In this paper, emphasis is put on passive stereoscopy, structured light, time-of-flight (ToF) and active stereoscopy, namely the most used technologies for the cameras design and fulfilment according to the literature. The aim of this article is to investigate facial applications and to examine 3D camera technologies to suggest some guidelines for addressing the correct choice of a 3D sensor according to the application that has to be developed

Analysis of RGB-D camera technologies for supporting different facial usage scenarios

AbstractRecently a wide variety of applications has been developed integrating 3D functionalities. Advantages given by the possibility of relying on depth information allows the developers to design new algorithms and to improve the existing ones. In particular, for what concerns face morphology, 3D has led to the possibility to obtain face depth maps highly close to reality and consequently an improvement of the starting point for further analysis such as Face Detection, Face Authentication, Face Identification and Face Expression Recognition. The development of the aforementioned applications would have been impossible without the progress of sensor technologies for obtaining 3D information. Several solutions have been adopted over time. In this paper, emphasis is put on passive stereoscopy, structured light, time-of-flight (ToF) and active stereoscopy, namely the most used technologies for the cameras design and fulfilment according to the literature. The aim of this article is to investigate facial applications and to examine 3D camera technologies to suggest some guidelines for addressing the correct choice of a 3D sensor according to the application that has to be developed

Pose Invariant 3D Face Authentication based on Gaussian Fields Approach

This thesis presents a novel illuminant invariant approach to recognize the identity of an individual from his 3D facial scan in any pose, by matching it with a set of frontal models stored in the gallery. In view of today’s security concerns, 3D face reconstruction and recognition has gained a significant position in computer vision research. The non intrusive nature of facial data acquisition makes face recognition one of the most popular approaches for biometrics-based identity recognition. Depth information of a 3D face can be used to solve the problems of illumination and pose variation associated with face recognition. The proposed method makes use of 3D geometric (point sets) face representations for recognizing faces. The use of 3D point sets to represent human faces in lieu of 2D texture makes this method robust to changes in illumination and pose. The method first automatically registers facial point-sets of the probe with the gallery models through a criterion based on Gaussian force fields. The registration method defines a simple energy function, which is always differentiable and convex in a large neighborhood of the alignment parameters; allowing for the use of powerful standard optimization techniques. The new method overcomes the necessity of close initialization and converges in much less iterations as compared to the Iterative Closest Point algorithm. The use of an optimization method, the Fast Gauss Transform, allows a considerable reduction in the computational complexity of the registration algorithm. Recognition is then performed by using the robust similarity score generated by registering 3D point sets of faces. Our approach has been tested on a large database of 85 individuals with 521 scans at different poses, where the gallery and the probe images have been acquired at significantly different times. The results show the potential of our approach toward a fully pose and illumination invariant system. Our method can be successfully used as a potential biometric system in various applications such as mug shot matching, user verification and access control, and enhanced human computer interaction

An Investigation into the Effects of Image Resolution on a Facial-Image-Based Personal Authentication System

The issues associated with image resolution in automated authentication or identification systems has become one of the important challenges for researchers' in biometrics. The aim of this thesis is to investigate the effect of variable resolutions on the performance of a Facial-Image-Based Person Authentication System. Image resolution may vary significantly especially in uncontrolled acquisition environments or when sensing from a distance and so on. The detail available in the data thus reduces which may deteriorate the performance of such system. In this project we investigated the impact on system accuracy when image resolution is gradually reduced by a given factor. As a remedy, we investigated different methods for increasing image resolution prior to using those images for authentication and compared the relative gains in accuracy. The main procedure of the face image authentication system based on comparing landmarks of the face remains the same. In this study, we found that several issues related to image resolutions might have an impact on the recognition rate performance such as facial expressions, image background, and others. The influence of image resolution on the recognition rate increases roughly with the increasing resolution at a specific degree, high-image resolution would not be good for recognition rate always; reducing high image resolution makes it easier to achieve high face recognition rates

Naval Reserve support to information Operations Warfighting

Since the mid-1990s, the Fleet Information Warfare Center (FIWC) has led the Navy's Information Operations (IO) support to the Fleet. Within the FIWC manning structure, there are in total 36 officer and 84 enlisted Naval Reserve billets that are manned to approximately 75 percent and located in Norfolk and San Diego Naval Reserve Centers. These Naval Reserve Force personnel could provide support to FIWC far and above what they are now contributing specifically in the areas of Computer Network Operations, Psychological Operations, Military Deception and Civil Affairs. Historically personnel conducting IO were primarily reservists and civilians in uniform with regular military officers being by far the minority. The Naval Reserve Force has the personnel to provide skilled IO operators but the lack of an effective manning document and training plans is hindering their opportunity to enhance FIWC's capabilities in lull spectrum IO. This research investigates the skill requirements of personnel in IO to verify that the Naval Reserve Force has the talent base for IO support and the feasibility of their expanded use in IO.http://archive.org/details/navalreservesupp109451098

Biometric Spoofing: A JRC Case Study in 3D Face Recognition

Based on newly available and affordable off-the-shelf 3D sensing, processing and printing technologies, the JRC has conducted a comprehensive study on the feasibility of spoofing 3D and 2.5D face recognition systems with low-cost self-manufactured models and presents in this report a systematic and rigorous evaluation of the real risk posed by such attacking approach which has been complemented by a test campaign. The work accomplished and presented in this report, covers theories, methodologies, state of the art techniques, evaluation databases and also aims at providing an outlook into the future of this extremely active field of research.JRC.G.6-Digital Citizen Securit

Biometrics

Biometrics-Unique and Diverse Applications in Nature, Science, and Technology provides a unique sampling of the diverse ways in which biometrics is integrated into our lives and our technology. From time immemorial, we as humans have been intrigued by, perplexed by, and entertained by observing and analyzing ourselves and the natural world around us. Science and technology have evolved to a point where we can empirically record a measure of a biological or behavioral feature and use it for recognizing patterns, trends, and or discrete phenomena, such as individuals' and this is what biometrics is all about. Understanding some of the ways in which we use biometrics and for what specific purposes is what this book is all about

Biometric Systems

Because of the accelerating progress in biometrics research and the latest nation-state threats to security, this book's publication is not only timely but also much needed. This volume contains seventeen peer-reviewed chapters reporting the state of the art in biometrics research: security issues, signature verification, fingerprint identification, wrist vascular biometrics, ear detection, face detection and identification (including a new survey of face recognition), person re-identification, electrocardiogram (ECT) recognition, and several multi-modal systems. This book will be a valuable resource for graduate students, engineers, and researchers interested in understanding and investigating this important field of study