Patent ID: 7515740

Claim:
A face recognition method for working with two or more collections of facial images, and using a processor to carry out the method, wherein the method comprises: (a) determining a first representation framework for a first collection of facial images including at least principle component analysis (PCA) features; (b) storing a representation of said first collection using said first representation framework; (c) determining a modified representation framework based on statistical properties of original facial image samples of a second collection of facial images and the stored representation of the first collection; (d) combining the stored representation of the first collection and the second collection without using original facial image samples including back-projection the second collection into the first representation framework, combining the back-projected representation of the second collection and the stored representation of the first collection into a combined image collection (super-collection), and forward projecting the combined collection into the second representation framework; (e) storing a representation of the combined image collection (super-collection) using said modified representation framework; (f) comparing a representation of a current facial image, determined in terms of said modified representation framework, with one or more representations of facial images of the combined collection; and (g) based on the comparing, determining whether one or more of the facial images within the combined collection matches the current facial image.