Abstract:
A simple method for segmenting eyes and extracting parameters enables further processing of the image to enable a person to appear to be making eye contact with another via a video conferencing system. This method is a first step for eye synthesis and gaze detection because it can automatically extract select eye parameters useful to these processes. Its advantage is that no a priori information is necessary to segment eyes, unlike modeling and neural network methods. The method of the present invention first blurs the image to make it easier to determine the location of the two eye regions in the image. The eyebrows are then eliminated based on the located eye regions. The eyes are then segmented and the eye parameters are extracted from the resulting image According to the present invention, the process applies a Gaussian filter, h(x, y), where g(x, y) is the resulting image and ƒ(x, y) is the original image.

Description:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 
     The present invention relates generally to methods and apparatuses for processing images, and more particularly to a method and apparatus for processing an image that includes detecting the location of eyes in a video facial image. 
     In desktop video conferencing systems for obvious reasons, the camera is usually located somewhere other than the center of the screen on which the image of the other conferee is being presented. Preferably the camera is located even out of the peripheral vision of the user to keep from being obtrusive. As a natural consequence, even when the viewer is looking directly at the screen, the viewer appears to the other conferee to be gazing inattentively off into space, which can be very distracting to the other conferee. Obviously, the viewer could look into the camera the entire time, but this would mean that the viewer would miss much of the information being presented on the screen. 
     As a result of the camera and screen being located in different positions, the eye movement in video conferencing systems does not match in-person meetings. However, eye contact is extremely important in interpersonal communications. Nevertheless, before video conferencing systems can replace these face-to-face meetings, it must create the look and feel of face-to-face meetings. 
     Attempts have been made to improve the look and feel of video conferencing systems to that which equals that of face-to-face meetings. In this area, approaches proposed to solve the eye-contact (also known as gaze tracking) problem have employed devices such as electronic shutters and half-reflected mirrors to make the camera physically or optically point at the user. While somewhat effective, these approaches are expensive and inconvenient. Expense is particularly an issue for those systems that expect to be deployed on individual personal computers or workstations due to the sheer numbers involved Inconvenience is also an issue in that people will not use systems that are awkwardly designed and implemented, which defeats the entire purpose of video conferencing systems. 
     To attempt to solve the gaze tracking problem, one can modify the image portion of the eyes so that the eyes are centered on the camera location rather than the screen. This requires processing of the pixels in the eyes to reorient them so they appear to be looking at the other person. Unfortunately, to perform this image processing, one must first detect the location of the eyes in the image, as only the eyes are processed in this manner. 
     Some approaches have employed headgear or sensors to detect the position of the eyes, which requires the user to remain very still. Both of these approaches are highly intrusive to the user. For the reasons discussed immediately above, most users will not wear headgear. 
     Another approach compares a library of models against the image until a match is found. This requires a database of models and a large amount of processing. As video conferencing is a live transmission, any large amount of processing is an impairment to implementation. 
     Yet another approach applies neural networks to determine the location of the eyes. In this case, neural networks are trained using reduced resolution images to find eyes. As with all neural networks, this requires training of the network. Training a neural network is a non-trivial problem, and can often delay or prevent implementation of a network in practical applications. 
     The present invention is therefore directed to the problem of developing a method and apparatus for detecting the location of eyes in an image that is simple and can be implemented in a video conferencing system. 
     SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION 
     The present invention solves this problem by first blurring the image before extracting the eye regions, eliminating the eyebrows in the eye regions, segmenting the eyes, and then extracting the eye parameters. 
     According to the method of the present invention, the image is first blurred using a Gaussian filter, such as:          g        (     x   ,   y     )       =       1     ∑                h        (     x   ,   y     )                  ∑   x                       ∑   y                       f        (     x   ,   y     )              h        (     x   ,   y     )       .                                    
     Next, the eyes are located within the image. Within this step, first, the search is limited to the center of the image, as the eyes are usually located near the center. Then, the contrast between the dark and light areas is used to locate and identify the eye regions. The next step returns to the original image, within which one can identify the eyes and eyebrows relatively easily. In this step, the eyebrows are removed by relying upon the fact that they are usually above the eyes. That which remains are the eyes. The next step is to segment the eyes into its constituent parts—the iris, the rounded corners and the whites of the eyes. This is accomplished using the intensity according to the following formula:          s        (     x   ,   y     )       =       {           eye                 white             if                   g        (     x   ,   y     )         &gt;   T               iris   ,   corner         otherwise         }     .                            
     In this case, the threshold is set high enough to segment all iris colors, but low enough to separate the entire white area. Next, the dark areas are identified as dark regions and the eye corners and irises are labeled at intensity 255 and the whites at intensity 0. Next, the eye parameters are extracted, which includes the iris radius, the iris center position, the four eyelid positions (both corners and upper and lower lids). 
     An apparatus for implementing the method of the present invention includes a digital camera for capturing the image and a processor. The processor first blurs the image to determine the location of the eyes, then extracts the eye regions and eliminates the eyebrows in the eye regions, segments the eyes, and then extracts the eye parameters. These eye parameters are then available for use by other programs or processors. 
    
    
     BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS 
     FIG. 1 depicts a flow chart of the method of the present invention, 
     FIG. 2 depicts the eye parameters extracted by the method of the present invention. 
     FIGS.  3 ( a )-( d ) depict the results of eye segmentation according to the method of the present invention. 
     FIG. 4 depicts a block diagram of an apparatus for implementing the method of the present invention. 
    
    
     DETAILED DESCRIPTION 
     The present invention provides a simple approach for detecting the location of eyes in an image. Among other things, this approach can be applied to video conferencing systems, which places limits on the amount of processing and storage retrieval due to the real-time nature of the application. According to the present invention, no training is needed as with neural networks, and no models are necessary to find eyes. Eyes are located and segmented in an intensity-based approach using image blur. The results of this work can be used for gaze detection, as well as face coding. 
     FIG. 1 shows the algorithm  10  of the present invention. As discussed below, the process of the present invention  10  begins with the step  11  of blurring the image. The nature of the eyes makes it easier to detect them in a blurred image than in the original focused image. So, prior to determining the location of the eyes, the image is blurred. 
     Next, in step  12  the process of the present invention  10  extracts the eye regions from the original image using the location detected in the first step. The eye regions are then processed as follows. 
     In step  13 , the eyebrows are removed using the assumption that they usually occur above the eyes, and that a light contrast region lies between them and the eyes, i.e., the dark region above the first dark region is removed. 
     In step  14 , the eyes are then segmented into their constituent parts. 
     Finally, in step  15  the eye parameters are detected. 
     Blurring 
     The first step  11  in the process of the present invention is to blur the image. While different techniques for blurring will suffice, the inventor has determined that a Gaussian filter performs well for this applications, The Gaussian filter of the present invention, h(x, y), is defined according to the following equation:          g        (     x   ,   y     )       =       1     ∑                h        (     x   ,   y     )                  ∑   x                       ∑   y                       f        (     x   ,   y     )            h        (     x   ,   y     )                                      
     where g(x, y) is the resulting image and ƒ(x, y) is the original image. 
     One exemplary embodiment of the function h(x,y) is a gaussian filter in the form of a 15×15 matrix, such as:          h        (     x   ,   y     )       =     [         2       2       3       4       5       5       6       6       6       5       5       4       3       2       2           2       3       4       5       7       7       8       8       8       7       7       5       4       3       2           3       4       6       7       9       10       10       11       10       10       9       7       6       4       3           4       5       7       9       10       12       13       13       13       12       10       9       7       5       4           5       7       9       11       13       14       15       16       15       14       13       11       9       7       5           5       7       10       12       14       16       17       18       17       16       14       13       10       7       5           6       8       10       13       15       17       19       19       19       17       15       13       10       8       6           6       8       11       13       16       18       19       20       19       18       16       13       11       8       6           6       8       10       13       15       17       19       19       19       17       15       13       10       8       6           5       7       10       12       14       16       17       18       17       16       14       13       10       7       5           5       7       9       11       13       14       15       16       15       14       13       11       9       7       5           4       5       7       9       10       12       13       13       13       12       10       9       7       5       4           3       4       6       7       9       10       10       11       10       10       9       7       6       4       3           2       3       4       5       7       7       8       8       8       7       7       5       4       3       2           2       2       3       4       5       5       6       6       6       5       5       4       3       2       2         ]                            
     The resulting pixel image is the blurred image which is used in the next step for locating the eye regions. 
     Locating the Eye Regions 
     In this step  12 , the two criteria used to locate these regions are relative position and contrast. In the video conferencing application, eye positions are generally near the image center. Therefore, the search of the image is limited to this area. 
     One embodiment of the present invention limits the search to an area defined by the middle third in the vertical direction and the middle third in the horizontal direction. Actually, the data used by the inventor was skewed in the horizontal direction. As a result, the inventor limited the search in the horizontal direction to the region between 25% and 60% of the horizontal pixels. 
     Because the eyes are set in sockets, the eyes appear shadowed in images. The consequence of blurring the image is that this shading appears as dark regions surrounded by lighter skin. The dark regions also include eyebrows. The contrast between the dark and light areas is used to locate and identify eye regions. 
     The contrast is used as follows. First, the pixels are tested against a first threshold, e.g., 50.0 of 255, and if they are above the first threshold ( 50 ), the pixels are declared to be part of the facial region. 
     Next, those pixels determined to be in the face region are tested against a second threshold, e.g., 70.0 of 255. In the second test, those pixels below the second threshold are declared to be part of the eyes. 
     As a result of these two tests on the blurred image, first the pixels that are part of the facial region are determined, and the pixels within the facial region that are part of the eyes are determined, at least in the limited search region where the eyes are likely to be located. 
     Eliminating Eyebrows 
     After these regions are located in the blurred image, processing returns to the original image. The original image is examined at the eye locations to determine where the eyebrows are located. In the original image, the eyes and eyebrows can be detected easily. The next step  13  is to remove eyebrows. Again, relative position is used. Eyebrows are always above and separate from eyes; therefore, they can be easily eliminated. This is accomplished by noting that the pixels are essentially in two groups, one below the other for each eye. The pixels in the top group are simply eliminated under the assumption that they are part of the eyebrows rather than the eyes The remaining regions are the eyes. 
     Segmenting the Eyes 
     Once the eyes have been determined, one must extract the eye parameters, however, to do so one must separate the eyes into their constituent parts. In this step, the eyes are segmented into three parts: the iris, the corners, and the whites. This segmentation is based on intensity according to the following equation:          s        (     x   ,   y     )       =     {           eye                 white             if                   g        (     x   ,   y     )         &gt;   T               iris   ,   corner         otherwise         }                            
     where T is a preset threshold and s(x, y) is the segmented image. Human irises are different colors; however, the remainder of the eyes is white. As white pixels have a value of 255, black pixels have a value of 0 and pixels in between have a value in between, the threshold T is set high enough to separate the irises from the white pixels. This segments the irises from the white parts of the eyes and the corners. In one embodiment of the present invention, the threshold T used is 85 of 255. 
     In addition, the eye corners are identified as dark regions. Then, the intensity of the eye corners and irises are reversed, i.e., the eye corners are labeled at intensity 255 and the whites at intensity 0 to make them easily identifiable. 
     Extracting Eye Parameters 
     In the next step  15 , the eye parameters are extracted. In this work, iris radius  25 , iris center position  22 , and four eyelid positions (both corners  23 ,  26  and upper and lower lids  21 ,  24 ) are found. See FIG.  2 . The eye regions are scanned from left to right, top to bottom. The eye corners  23 ,  26  are the left-most and right-most white pixels (reversed from their normal color) and the upper  21  and lower lids  24  are the top-most  21  and bottom-most white pixels  24  in each eye regions. The white pixels making up the iris  22  are separated from the corners  23 ,  26  by black pixels, which represent the eye whites  27 . This separation makes iris width and height measurements easy. The position of the iris center is calculated from width and height of the white pixels. That is, the center of the iris is exactly the center of the width and height of the white pixels. The iris radius is half the width of the white pixels. These determined eye parameters are useful for gaze detection and eye syntheses. 
     Results 
     FIGS.  3 ( a )-( d ) show the result of this algorithm. In FIG.  3 ( a ), the original image is shown. The blurred image is shown in  3 ( b ). Note the dark eye regions. A box is drawn around the selected region in  3 ( c ). After removal of the eyebrows, the eyes are segmented in  3 ( d ). The white regions indicate the irises and eye corners. The gaps in each eye are the white regions. 
     
       
         
               
             
               
               
               
             
               
               
               
               
               
             
           
               
                 TABLE 1 
               
             
             
               
                   
               
               
                 shows the extracted parameters from the figures. 
               
             
          
           
               
                   
                 Sean 
                 Sandy 
               
             
          
           
               
                 Parameter 
                 Left Eye 
                 Right Eye 
                 Left Eye 
                 Right Eye 
               
               
                   
               
               
                 Radius 
                 3 
                 3 
                 4 
                 3 
               
               
                 Iris Center 
                 (63,76) 
                 (60,94) 
                 (122,117) 
                 (124,164) 
               
               
                 Eye Corners 
                 (63,66) 
                 (60,78) 
                 (122,105) 
                 (124,149) 
               
               
                   
                 (63,79) 
                 (60,97) 
                 (122,121) 
                 (124,167) 
               
               
                 Eyelid, upper 
                 (61,76) 
                 (60,94) 
                 (116,117) 
                 (116,164) 
               
               
                 Eyelid, lower 
                 (65,76) 
                 (60,94) 
                 (136,117) 
                 (134,164) 
               
               
                   
               
             
          
         
       
     
     System for Implementing the Method 
     Turning to FIG. 4, to implement the method of the present invention, a camera  41  is used to capture the image. The camera  41  outputs the image to a converter  43 , which converts the captured image to pixels. 
     The digital image is then passed to a processor  45 , such as a dedicated computer, which could be a Sun SparcStation, for example. Each of the steps of the method of the present invention car be implemented as a separate subroutine and executed as calls to the subroutine, or as part of a single program. 
     The processor  45  then blurs the image using the Gaussian filter, determines the location of the two eye regions, in the blurred image, eliminates the eyebrows from the image, segments the eyes into their constituent parts, and then extracts the plurality of eye parameters. These parameters are then placed in a file in storage  47  for later retrieval or further processing, such as reorientation of the direction of eye contact according to known techniques.