Patent ID: 7853049

Claim:
A face feature extraction apparatus for use in a two-dimensional (2D) face identification system, the apparatus comprising: a local base vector generator generating a plurality of local base vectors from an intra class covariance matrix to extract features of portions of a face from input 2D face image data of users, wherein the extraction of features of portions of a face includes determining the location of said face features; a local base vector selector selecting a predetermined number of local base vectors suitable for face identification from the plurality of local base vectors generated by the local base vector generator; and a local base vector overlapper overlapping the local base vectors selected by the local base vector selector and generating a smaller number of overlapped local base vectors than the selected local base vectors, wherein the plurality of local base vectors correspond to local features of the face from the 2D face image data, and wherein the local vector overlapper is configured to be performed prior to determining a location of the face features.