On facial expression recognition using the virtual image masking for a security system

Abstract

Since PC camera based net-meeting and video chatting program have been introduced, users become to enjoy real-time communication with each other through PC as having face to face meeting. This paper proposes virtual masking for these net-meeting users on internet. Net-meeting user adapted by the virtual masking can hide his face on the other party's monitor and show only his facial expressions instead of face, whose shapes could be a tiger or a spider-man. For implementation of virtual masking, we first detect a facial area to adapt skin color method with the standard of Asian skin color. And we find positions of eyes on the facial area, then, extract the user's expression to analysis user's mouth area. This virtual masking would be useful to protect user's privacy on the open communication environment like internet. © Springer-Verlag 2004.