Automated facial metrology
D. O'Mara · UWA Profiles and Research Repository (UWA) · 2002
Automated facial metrology is the science of objective and automatic measurement of the human face. There are many reasons for measuring the human face. Psychologists are interested in determining how humans perceive beauty, and how this is related to facial symmetry [158]. Biologists are interested in the relationship between symmetry and biological fitness [124]. Anthropologists, surgeons, forensic experts, and security professionals can also benefit from automated facial metrology [32, 101, 114]. This thesis investigates the concept of automated facial metrology, presenting original techniques for segmenting 3D range and colour images of the human head, measuring the bilateral symmetry of n-dimensional point data (with particular emphasis on measuring the human head), and extracting the 2D profile of the face from 3D data representing the head. Two facial profile analysis techniques are also presented that are incremental improvements over existing techniques. Extensive literature reviews of skin colour modelling, symmetry detection, symmetry measurement, and facial profile analysis are also included in this thesis. It was discovered during this research that bilateral symmetry detection using principal axes is not appropriate for detecting the mid-line of the human face. An original mid-line detection technique that does not use symmetry, and is superior to the symmetry-based technique, was developed as a direct result of this discovery.