Labeling of Human Face Components from Range Data

An approach to labeling the components of human faces from range images is proposed. The components of interest are those humans usually find significant for recognition. To cope with the nonrigidity of faces, an entirely qualitative approach is used. The preprocessing stage employs a multistage diffusion process to identify convexity and concavity points. These points are grouped into components and qualitative reasoning about possible interpretations of the components is performed. Consistency of hypothesized interpretations is carried out using context-based reasoning. Experimental results on real range images of several faces are provided.