Patent ID: 6944319
Filing Date: 2005-09-13
Classification: G06K

Abstract:
1. A computer-implemented face recognition process for identifying a person depicted in an input image, comprising using a computer to perform the following process actions: creating a database of a plurality of model image characterizations, each of which represents the face of a known person that it is desired to identify in the input image as well as the person's face pose; training a neural network ensemble to identify a person and their face pose from a region which has been extracted from said input image and characterized in a manner similar to the plurality of model images, wherein the network ensemble comprises, a first stage having a plurality of classifiers each of which has input and output units and is dedicated to a particular pose range and outputs a measure of the similarity indicative of the similarity between said characterized input image region and each of said model image characterizations associated with the particular pose range of the classifier, and a fusing neural network as its second stage which combines the outputs of the classifiers to generate an output indicative of the person associated with the characterized input image region and the face pose of that person and which has at least enough output units to allow a different output to represent each person it is desired to identify at each of the pose ranges, and wherein training the neural network ensemble comprises, employing the network ensemble to identify the person associated with the characterized input image region and the face pose of that person.