Patent ID: 7054468

Claim:
A method of representing a set of reference face images corresponding to a set of first vectors in an input space of a first dimension, the method comprising: projecting the first vectors to a high dimensional feature space of a second dimension using a projection function to generate a set of second vectors in the high dimensional feature space, the second dimension having more dimensions than the first dimension; generating Kernel Fisherfaces for the second vectors; generating a set of third vectors in a face image space of a third dimension based upon the second vectors and the Kernel Fisherfaces, the third vectors corresponding to reference face image points in the face image space and the third dimension having fewer dimensions than the first dimension and the second dimension; and identifying an input face image as corresponding to a particular face image in the set of reference face images, the input face image represented by at least a fourth vector in the input space, the step of identifying an input space comprising: projecting the fourth vector to the high dimensional feature space using the projection function to generate a fifth vector in the high dimensional feature space; generating a sixth vector in the face image space based upon the fifth vector and the Kernel Fisherfaces, the sixth vector corresponding to an input face image point in the face image space; computing the distances between the input face image point and each of the reference face image points in the face image space; and responsive to determining a minimum of the computed distances, identifying the input face image as corresponding to the reference face image corresponding to the minimum distance.