Segmentation and tracking of facial regions in color image sequences

Abstract

In this paper a new algorithm for joint detection and segmentation of human faces in color images sequence is presented. A skin probability image is generated using a model for skin color. Instead of a binary segmentation to detect skin regions, connected operators are used to analyze the skin probability image at different threshold levels. A hierarchical scheme of operators using shape and texture simplifies the skin probability image. For the remaining connected components, the likelihood of being a face is estimated using principal components analysis. To track a detected face region through the sequence, the connected component that represent the face in the previous frame is projected into the current frame. Using the projected segment as a marker, connected operators extract the actual face region from the skin probability image.