Automatic landmarking of faces in 3D-ALF^3D

We present an algorithm for automatic localization of landmarks on 3D faces. An active shape model, ASM, is used as a statistical joint location model for configurations of facial features. The ASM is adapted to individual faces via a guided search whereby landmark specific shape index models are matched to local surface patches. The algorithm is trained and tested on 912 3D face images from the face recognition grand challenge dataset. Results demonstrate that the automatic procedure successfully and reliably locates landmarks and, compared with an iterative closest point (ICP) algorithm, reduces the mean error for location of landmarks by nearly a half. ©2008 The Institution of Engineering and Technology