Image Processing Technologies for Security. Face and Feature Detection Using Skin Color and Motion

We propose a method to detect face regions by using the standard skin color which is taken from an image in a color histogram. Extraction of the face regions is based on an area in motion and the deviation from the standard skin color obtained by discriminant analysis. The standard skin color is updated from information obtained from the detected face region. To judge a face, we use templates composed of directional features and color features to detect eyes and mouth. In the face detection experiment, our algorithm could detect a face region by using motion of a subject's head. In addition, the updated standard skin color was correct. In the facial parts detection experiment, by updating the templates, our method worked better than the method that used only directional features. Consequently, our algorithm can extract the facial features even when a person tilts his or her head. With a SGI/O 2 workstation, it is possible to achieve a speed of approximately 0.25 sec/frame.