General Dynamics [GD] United Kingdom Limited subsidiary yesterday announced it is collaborating with the University of the West of England (UWE), the Imperial College London, the Home Office Scientific Development Branch, Identity Solutions Ltd., and the International Association for Biometrics, to advance facial recognition techniques.
The team is researching 3-D imaging techniques as part of the PhotoFace Project. The goal is to develop security cameras that are able to see through disguises and recognize faces in any light or at any angle.
The academic and industry collaborative team has received about $1.3 million for the three-year project from the U.K.’s Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council’s Fighting Crime Program. Potential uses for the cameras include airport immigration control, crowd surveillance and mugshot identification. Other applications could be in the areas of forensic science and communications.
UWE and Imperial College are recognized as two of only three U.K. centers with expertise in the recognition technique, called photometric stereo, which uses subtleties in shading to isolate and recover fine detail in 3-D shapes.
“We are committed to helping our academic partners advance these state-of-the-art recognition processing techniques, which will have civilian and military applications,” Andrew Tilbrook, General Dynamics UK Ltd.’s Director of Data and Information Fusion Centre, said. “This project allows us to use our expertise in security and intelligence solutions.”
Melvyn Smith, Centre Director of UWE’s Machine Vision Laboratory, said, “As humans we have an amazing capacity to recognize 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 3-D images of faces that allow them to be identified despite changes in pose, lighting or facial expression.”
The technique of photometric stereo was first described at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the 1970s. UWE began studying it in the early 1990s. The university developed a ground-breaking dynamic form that for the first time allowed the analysis of moving surfaces with both 2-D and 3-D features. The team at UWE is researching other applications for the technique in fields including medicine.
Research for the PhotoFace Project is being conducted at UWE’s Machine Vision Laboratory and at the South Wales offices of General Dynamics UK.
“To collect data for the projects volunteers can walk through the unmanned device, which automatically detects their presence and scans their face as they walk through,” UWE’s Smith said. “They will see a 3-D image of their faces displayed as they exit the system.”
UWE’s Machine Vision Laboratory is a member of the Bristol Vision Institute, a group which brings together members from a wide range of disciplines, including biological vision and artificial computer vision systems.