A new multi-camera based facial expression analysis concept

Abstract

In his paper we describe a multi-camera based concept for facial expression recognition, which is of potential interest for modern man-machine-interfaces. Naturally, the recognition of facial user events is limited by the field of view of the applied cameras. However, in some application domains, such as patient state analysis it is mandatory to always get feedback. This can only be accomplished by increasing the observable field of view. Our proposed concept addresses this issue through the use of multiple cameras. For the realization of facial expression recognition we extended an existing technique. Examples are given for a three camera setup, which substantially enhances the degree of freedom for interaction and/or recognition of facial events. In this article we describe the applied components, such as the adaptation of the generic face model, multi-camera based pose estimation and relevant feature transformations to carry out machine based recognition. © 2012 Springer-Verlag.