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3d imaging techniques being developed by the University of the West of England and Imperial College London may soon allows security cameras to ‘see through’ disguises, as well as to recognise faces in any light and at any angle.
The technique, called photometric stereo, uses subtleties in image shading to isolate and recover fine detail in 3d shapes. The technique was first described at MIT in the 1970s, but remained largely a laboratory curiosity until the early 1990s when a dynamic form was developed at UWE. This allowed moving surfaces with both 2d and 3d features to be analysed.
Dr Melvyn Smith, reader in machine vision at UWE, said he was delighted to be working with the team from Imperial College. “As humans, we have an amazing capacity to recognise faces. But automated face recognition is one of the most challenging research topics in the field of computer vision. The PhotoFace project aims to develop new forms of capturing 3d images of faces that allow them to be identified despite changes in pose, lighting or facial expression.”
