Patent ID: 7515773

Claim:
A facial parts position detection device comprising: an image inputting means for inputting a captured face image; an ends position detecting means for detecting right and left ends position of the face on the basis of the image inputted by the image inputting means; a facial parts region setting means for setting facial parts region indicating a region where facial parts exists on the basis of the right and left ends of the face detected by the ends position detecting means; a horizontal edge detecting means for detecting a-horizontal edges on the basis of the image inputted by the image inputting means; a horizontal edge histogram creating means for creating a horizontal edge histogram by projecting the horizontal edges of the facial parts detected by the horizontal edge detecting means in a horizontal direction; a proposed position setting means for setting a plurality of peaks of the horizontal edge histogram as proposed positions respectively by the horizontal edge histogram creating means; and an optimum position detecting means for detecting an optimum position of the facial parts region on the basis of the facial parts region set by the facial parts region setting means and each proposed position set by the proposed position setting means; wherein the optimum position detecting means detects the horizontal edges, which are symmetric with respect to an axis of symmetry, in the facial parts region by applying the facial parts region to the each proposed position, and detects a position of the facial parts region where the number of horizontal edges, which are symmetric with respect to the axis of symmetry, is the maximum as the optimum position of the facial pads region.