• The Journal of Korea Robotics Society
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• v.8 no.4
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• pp.266-272
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• 2013

Facial feature extraction and tracking are essential steps in human-robot-interaction (HRI) field such as face recognition, gaze estimation, and emotion recognition. Active shape model (ASM) is one of the successful generative models that extract the facial features. However, applying only ASM is not adequate for modeling a face in actual applications, because positions of facial features are unstably extracted due to limitation of the number of iterations in the ASM fitting algorithm. The unaccurate positions of facial features decrease the performance of the emotion recognition. In this paper, we propose real-time facial feature extraction and tracking framework using ASM and LK optical flow for emotion recognition. LK optical flow is desirable to estimate time-varying geometric parameters in sequential face images. In addition, we introduce a straightforward method to avoid tracking failure caused by partial occlusions that can be a serious problem for tracking based algorithm. Emotion recognition experiments with k-NN and SVM classifier shows over 95% classification accuracy for three emotions: "joy", "anger", and "disgust".

• The Journal of Korea Institute of Information, Electronics, and Communication Technology
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• v.2 no.3
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• pp.53-60
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• 2009

The vision-based driver fatigue detection is one of the most prospective commercial applications of facial expression recognition technology. The facial feature tracking is the primary technique issue in it. Current facial tracking technology faces three challenges: (1) detection failure of some or all of features due to a variety of lighting conditions and head motions; (2) multiple and non-rigid object tracking; and (3) features occlusion when the head is in oblique angles. In this paper, we propose a new active approach. First, the active IR sensor is used to robustly detect pupils under variable lighting conditions. The detected pupils are then used to predict the head motion. Furthermore, face movement is assumed to be locally smooth so that a facial feature can be tracked with a Kalman filter. The simultaneous use of the pupil constraint and the Kalman filtering greatly increases the prediction accuracy for each feature position. Feature detection is accomplished in the Gabor space with respect to the vicinity of predicted location. Local graphs consisting of identified features are extracted and used to capture the spatial relationship among detected features. Finally, a graph-based reliability propagation is proposed to tackle the occlusion problem and verify the tracking results. The experimental results show validity of our active approach to real-life facial tracking under variable lighting conditions, head orientations, and facial expressions.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Information and Commucation Sciences Conference
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• 2004.05b
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• pp.603-607
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• 2004

The vision-based driver fatigue detection is one of the most prospective commercial applications of facial expression recognition technology. The facial feature tracking is the primary technique issue in it. Current facial tracking technology faces three challenges: (1) detection failure of some or all of features due to a variety of lighting conditions and head motions; (2) multiple and non-rigid object tracking and (3) features occlusion when the head is in oblique angles. In this paper, we propose a new active approach. First, the active IR sensor is used to robustly detect pupils under variable lighting conditions. The detected pupils are then used to predict the head motion. Furthermore, face movement is assumed to be locally smooth so that a facial feature can be tracked with a Kalman filter. The simultaneous use of the pupil constraint and the Kalman filtering greatly increases the prediction accuracy for each feature position. Feature detection is accomplished in the Gabor space with respect to the vicinity of predicted location. Local graphs consisting of identified features are extracted and used to capture the spatial relationship among detected features. Finally, a graph-based reliability propagation is proposed to tackle the occlusion problem and verify the tracking results. The experimental results show validity of our active approach to real-life facial tracking under variable lighting conditions, head orientations, and facial expressions.

• The Journal of Korean Institute of Communications and Information Sciences
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• v.35 no.9C
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• pp.756-760
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• 2010

This paper is proposed to an novel facial behavior recognition system for driver's fatigue detection. Facial behavior is shown in various facial feature such as head expression, head pose, gaze, wrinkles. But it is very difficult to clearly discriminate a certain behavior by the obtained facial feature. Because, the behavior of a person is complicated and the face representing behavior is vague in providing enough information. The proposed system for facial behavior recognition first performs detection facial feature such as eye tracking, facial feature tracking, furrow detection, head orientation estimation, head motion detection and indicates the obtained feature by AU of FACS. On the basis of the obtained AU, it infers probability each state occur through Bayesian network.

• 한국HCI학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2008.02a
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• pp.835-838
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• 2008

In this paper, we present automatic face detection and tracking which is robustness in rotation and translation. Detecting a face image, we used Haar-like feature, which is fast detect facial image. Also tracking, we applied Lucas-Kanade feature tracker and KLT algorithm, which has robustness for rotated facial image. In experiment result, we confirmed that face detection and tracking which is robustness in rotation and translation.

• KSII Transactions on Internet and Information Systems (TIIS)
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• v.2 no.2
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• pp.120-133
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• 2008

This paper presents a novel approach for facial motion tracking and facial expression cloning to create a realistic facial animation of a 3D avatar. The exact head pose estimation and facial expression tracking are critical issues that must be solved when developing vision-based computer animation. In this paper, we deal with these two problems. The proposed approach consists of two phases: dynamic head pose estimation and facial expression cloning. The dynamic head pose estimation can robustly estimate a 3D head pose from input video images. Given an initial reference template of a face image and the corresponding 3D head pose, the full head motion is recovered by projecting a cylindrical head model onto the face image. It is possible to recover the head pose regardless of light variations and self-occlusion by updating the template dynamically. In the phase of synthesizing the facial expression, the variations of the major facial feature points of the face images are tracked by using optical flow and the variations are retargeted to the 3D face model. At the same time, we exploit the RBF (Radial Basis Function) to deform the local area of the face model around the major feature points. Consequently, facial expression synthesis is done by directly tracking the variations of the major feature points and indirectly estimating the variations of the regional feature points. From the experiments, we can prove that the proposed vision-based facial expression cloning method automatically estimates the 3D head pose and produces realistic 3D facial expressions in real time.

• The Journal of Korea Robotics Society
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• v.8 no.2
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• pp.104-115
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• 2013

For natural human-robot interaction, we need to know location and shape of facial feature in real environment. In order to track facial feature robustly, we can use the method combining particle filter and active appearance model. However, processing speed of this method is too slow. In this paper, we propose two ideas to improve efficiency of this method. The first idea is changing the number of particles situationally. And the second idea is switching the prediction model situationally. Experimental results is presented to show that the proposed method is about three times faster than the method combining particle filter and active appearance model, whereas the performance of the proposed method is maintained.

• Journal of Internet Computing and Services
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• v.14 no.6
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• pp.117-124
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• 2013

In this paper, we present a new method which efficiently estimates a face direction from a sequences of input video images in real time fashion. For this work, the proposed method performs detecting the facial region and major facial features such as both eyes, nose and mouth by using the Haar-like feature, which is relatively not sensitive against light variation, from the detected facial area. Then, it becomes able to track the feature points from every frame using optical flow in real time fashion, and determine the direction of the face based on the feature points tracked. Further, in order to prevent the erroneously recognizing the false positions of the facial features when if the coordinates of the features are lost during the tracking by using optical flow, the proposed method determines the validity of locations of the facial features using the template matching of detected facial features in real time. Depending on the correlation rate of re-considering the detection of the features by the template matching, the face direction estimation process is divided into detecting the facial features again or tracking features while determining the direction of the face. The template matching initially saves the location information of 4 facial features such as the left and right eye, the end of nose and mouse in facial feature detection phase and reevaluated these information when the similarity measure between the stored information and the traced facial information by optical flow is exceed a certain level of threshold by detecting the new facial features from the input image. The proposed approach automatically combines the phase of detecting facial features and the phase of tracking features reciprocally and enables to estimate face pose stably in a real-time fashion. From the experiment, we can prove that the proposed method efficiently estimates face direction.

• Journal of the Korea Institute of Information and Communication Engineering
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• v.8 no.6
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• pp.1182-1187
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• 2004

Robust, real-time, fully automatic tracking of facial features is required for many computer vision and graphics applications. In this paper, we describe a fully automatic system that tracks eyes and eyebrows in real time. The pupils are tracked using the red eye effect by an infrared sensitive camera equipped with infrared LEDs. Templates are used to parameterize the facial features. For each new frame, the pupil coordinates are used to extract cropped images of eyes and eyebrows. The template parameters are recovered by PCA analysis on these extracted images using a PCA basis, which was constructed during the training phase with some example images. The system runs at 30 fps and requires no manual initialization or calibration. The system is shown to work well on sequences with considerable head motions and occlusions.

• Journal of Internet Computing and Services
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• v.7 no.3
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• pp.143-153
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• 2006

Facial feature detection is a basic technology in applications such as human computer interface, face recognition, face tracking and image database management. The speed of feature detection algorithm is one of the main issues for facial feature detection in real-time environment. Primary factors like a variation by lighting effect, location, rotation and complex background give an effect to decrease a detection ratio. A facial feature detection algorithm is proposed to improve the detection ratio and the detection speed. The proposed algorithm detects skin regions over the entire image improved by CLAHE, an algorithm for light compensation against varying lighting conditions. To extract facial feature points on detected skin regions, it uses appearance-based geometrical characteristics of a face. Since the method shows fast detection speed as well as efficient face-detection ratio, it can be applied in real-time application to face tracking and face recognition.