Multi-task pose-invariant face recognition

IEEE Trans Image Process. 2015 Mar;24(3):980-93. doi: 10.1109/TIP.2015.2390959. Epub 2015 Jan 12.

Abstract

Face images captured in unconstrained environments usually contain significant pose variation, which dramatically degrades the performance of algorithms designed to recognize frontal faces. This paper proposes a novel face identification framework capable of handling the full range of pose variations within ±90° of yaw. The proposed framework first transforms the original pose-invariant face recognition problem into a partial frontal face recognition problem. A robust patch-based face representation scheme is then developed to represent the synthesized partial frontal faces. For each patch, a transformation dictionary is learnt under the proposed multi-task learning scheme. The transformation dictionary transforms the features of different poses into a discriminative subspace. Finally, face matching is performed at patch level rather than at the holistic level. Extensive and systematic experimentation on FERET, CMU-PIE, and Multi-PIE databases shows that the proposed method consistently outperforms single-task-based baselines as well as state-of-the-art methods for the pose problem. We further extend the proposed algorithm for the unconstrained face verification problem and achieve top-level performance on the challenging LFW data set.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Algorithms
  • Artificial Intelligence
  • Biometric Identification / methods*
  • Databases, Factual
  • Face / anatomy & histology*
  • Humans
  • Image Processing, Computer-Assisted / methods*
  • Posture / physiology*