A New Face Detection Method by Hierarchical Color Histogram Analysis

Because face has non-rigid structure and is influenced by illumination, we need robust face detection algorithm with the variations of external environments (orientation of lighting and face, complex background, etc.). In this paper we develop a new face detection algorithm to achieve robustness. First we transform RGB color into other color space, in which we can reduce lighting effect much. Second, hierarchical image segmentation technique is used for dividing a image into homogeneous regions. This process uses not only color information, but also spatial information. One of them is used in segmentation by histogram analysis, the other is used in segmentation by grouping. And we can select face region among the homogeneous regions by using facial features.