Harry Wechsler

The FERET database and evaluation procedure for face-recognition algorithms

Abstract The Face Recognition Technology (FERET) program database is a large database of facial images, divided into development and sequestered portions. The development portion is made available to researchers, and the sequestered portion is reserved for testing facerecognition algorithms. The FERET evaluation procedure is an independently administered test of face-recognition algorithms. The test was designed to: (1) allow a direct comparison between different algorithms, (2) identify the most promising approaches, (3) assess the state of the art in face recognition, (4) identify future directions of research, and (5) advance the state of the art in face recognition.

Gabor feature based classification using the enhanced fisher linear discriminant model for face recognition

This paper introduces a novel Gabor-Fisher (1936) classifier (GFC) for face recognition. The GFC method, which is robust to changes in illumination and facial expression, applies the enhanced Fisher linear discriminant model (EFM) to an augmented Gabor feature vector derived from the Gabor wavelet representation of face images. The novelty of this paper comes from 1) the derivation of an augmented Gabor feature vector, whose dimensionality is further reduced using the EFM by considering both data compression and recognition (generalization) performance; 2) the development of a Gabor-Fisher classifier for multi-class problems; and 3) extensive performance evaluation studies. In particular, we performed comparative studies of different similarity measures applied to various classifiers. We also performed comparative experimental studies of various face recognition schemes, including our novel GFC method, the Gabor wavelet method, the eigenfaces method, the Fisherfaces method, the EFM method, the combination of Gabor and the eigenfaces method, and the combination of Gabor and the Fisherfaces method. The feasibility of the new GFC method has been successfully tested on face recognition using 600 FERET frontal face images corresponding to 200 subjects, which were acquired under variable illumination and facial expressions. The novel GFC method achieves 100% accuracy on face recognition using only 62 features.

Tracking Groups of People

A computer vision system for tracking multiple people in relatively unconstrained environments is described. Tracking is performed at three levels of abstraction: regions, people, and groups. A novel, adaptive background subtraction method that combines color and gradient information is used to cope with shadows and unreliable color cues. People are tracked through mutual occlusions as they form groups and separate from one another. Strong use is made of color information to disambiguate occlusion and to provide qualitative estimates of depth ordering and position during occlusion. Simple interactions with objects can also be detected. The system is tested using both indoor and outdoor sequences. It is robust and should provide a useful mechanism for bootstrapping and reinitialization of tracking using more specific but less robust human models.

Micro-Doppler effect in radar: phenomenon, model, and simulation study

When, in addition to the constant Doppler frequency shift induced by the bulk motion of a radar target, the target or any structure on the target undergoes micro-motion dynamics, such as mechanical vibrations or rotations, the micro-motion dynamics induce Doppler modulations on the returned signal, referred to as the micro-Doppler effect. We introduce the micro-Doppler phenomenon in radar, develop a model of Doppler modulations, derive formulas of micro-Doppler induced by targets with vibration, rotation, tumbling and coning motions, and verify them by simulation studies, analyze time-varying micro-Doppler features using high-resolution time-frequency transforms, and demonstrate the micro-Doppler effect observed in real radar data.

Independent component analysis of Gabor features for face recognition

We present an independent Gabor features (IGFs) method and its application to face recognition. The novelty of the IGF method comes from 1) the derivation of independent Gabor features in the feature extraction stage and 2) the development of an IGF features-based probabilistic reasoning model (PRM) classification method in the pattern recognition stage. In particular, the IGF method first derives a Gabor feature vector from a set of downsampled Gabor wavelet representations of face images, then reduces the dimensionality of the vector by means of principal component analysis, and finally defines the independent Gabor features based on the independent component analysis (ICA). The independence property of these Gabor features facilitates the application of the PRM method for classification. The rationale behind integrating the Gabor wavelets and the ICA is twofold. On the one hand, the Gabor transformed face images exhibit strong characteristics of spatial locality, scale, and orientation selectivity. These images can, thus, produce salient local features that are most suitable for face recognition. On the other hand, ICA would further reduce redundancy and represent independent features explicitly. These independent features are most useful for subsequent pattern discrimination and associative recall. Experiments on face recognition using the FacE REcognition Technology (FERET) and the ORL datasets, where the images vary in illumination, expression, pose, and scale, show the feasibility of the IGF method. In particular, the IGF method achieves 98.5% correct face recognition accuracy when using 180 features for the FERET dataset, and 100% accuracy for the ORL dataset using 88 features.

Evolutionary pursuit and its application to face recognition

Introduces evolutionary pursuit (EP) as an adaptive representation method for image encoding and classification. In analogy to projection pursuit, EP seeks to learn an optimal basis for the dual purpose of data compression and pattern classification. It should increase the generalization ability of the learning machine as a result of seeking the trade-off between minimizing the empirical risk encountered during training and narrowing the confidence interval for reducing the guaranteed risk during testing. It therefore implements strategies characteristic of GA for searching the space of possible solutions to determine the optimal basis. It projects the original data into a lower dimensional whitened principal component analysis (PCA) space. Directed random rotations of the basis vectors in this space are searched by GA where evolution is driven by a fitness function defined by performance accuracy (empirical risk) and class separation (confidence interval). Accuracy indicates the extent to which learning has been successful, while separation gives an indication of expected fitness. The method has been tested on face recognition using a greedy search algorithm. To assess both accuracy and generalization capability, the data includes for each subject images acquired at different times or under different illumination conditions. EP has better recognition performance than PCA (eigenfaces) and better generalization abilities than the Fisher linear discriminant (Fisherfaces).

Detection and location of people in video images using adaptive fusion of color and edge information

A new method of finding people in video images is presented. The detection is based on a novel background modeling and subtraction approach which uses both color and edge information. We introduce confidence maps gray-scale images whose intensity is a function of confidence that a pixel has changed - to fuse intermediate results and represent the results of background subtraction. The latter is used to delineate a persons body by guiding contour collection to segment the person from the background. The method is tolerant to scene clutter, slow illumination changes, and camera noise, and runs in near real time on a standard platform.

A shape- and texture-based enhanced Fisher classifier for face recognition

This paper introduces a new face coding and recognition method, the enhanced Fisher classifier (EFC), which employs the enhanced Fisher linear discriminant model (EFM) on integrated shape and texture features. Shape encodes the feature geometry of a face while texture provides a normalized shape-free image. The dimensionalities of the shape and the texture spaces are first reduced using principal component analysis, constrained by the EFM for enhanced generalization. The corresponding reduced shape and texture features are then combined through a normalization procedure to form the integrated features that are processed by the EFM for face recognition. Experimental results, using 600 face images corresponding to 200 subjects of varying illumination and facial expressions, show that (1) the integrated shape and texture features carry the most discriminating information followed in order by textures, masked images, and shape images, and (2) the new coding and face recognition method, EFC, performs the best among the eigenfaces method using L(1) or L(2) distance measure, and the Mahalanobis distance classifiers using a common covariance matrix for all classes or a pooled within-class covariance matrix. In particular, EFC achieves 98.5% recognition accuracy using only 25 features.

Segmentation of textured images and Gestalt organization using spatial/spatial-frequency representations

The generic issue of clustering/grouping is addressed. Recent research, both in computer and human vision, suggests the use of joint spatial/spatial-frequency (s/sf) representations. The spectrogram, the difference of Gaussians representation, the Gabor representation, and the Wigner distribution are discussed and compared. It is noted that the Wigner distribution gives superior joint resolution. Experimental results in the area of texture segmentation and Gestalt grouping using the Wigner distribution are presented, proving the feasibility of using s/sf representations for low-level (early, preattentive) vision. >

Automated page orientation and skew angle detection for binary document images

Abstract We describe the development and implementation of algorithms for detecting the page orientation (portrait/landscape) and the degree of skew for documents available as binary images. A new and fast approach is advanced herein whereby skew angle detection takes advantage of information found using the page orientation algorithm. Page orientation is accomplished using local analysis, while skew angle detection is implemented based on the processing of pixels of last black run-lengths of binary image objects. The experiments carried out on a variety of medical journals show the feasibility of the new approach and indicate that detection accuracy can be improved by minimizing the effects of non-textual data.