A new force field transform for ear and face recognition

Abstract

The objective in defining feature space is to reduce the dimension of the original pattern space yet maintaining discriminatory power for classification. To meet this objective in the context of ear and face biometrics a novel force field transformation has been developed in which the image is treated as an array of Gaussian attractors that act as the source of a force field. The directional properties of the force field are exploited to automatically locate a small number of potential energy wells and channels that form the basis of a characteristic feature vector. Here, we generalise the analysis, and the stock of applications.