Patent ID: 8306262

Claim:
A face tracking method for electronic camera devices, which is applied to an electronic camera device having a face database and a face classifier therein, wherein the face database is provided for storing data including face position, size and skin color prototype of a previously stored preview image, comprising the steps of: obtaining a current preview image; determining whether or not a known face exists in the face database; defining a searching space on the current preview image; using the face classifier to detect the searching space in the current preview image, and determining whether or not a face exists in the searching space; obtaining a skin color extraction information to define the searching space, when the face database is determined to have a known face, according to the data including a position, a size and a skin color prototype of the known face in the face database; automatically updating the corresponding face data in the face database, when the data of each face in the current preview image is detected; starting a face tracking mechanism to extend the searching space into an extended searching region according to the data including the position, size and skin color prototype of a know face in the face database, when the face classifier cannot detect a face in the searching space; and calculating a color histogram of each position in the extended searching region and a color histogram matching of a corresponding known face, and using a data of a corresponding position with the maximum histogram matching for the detection as the detected data of each face in the current preview image.