Biometric and color features fusion for face detection and tracking in natural video sequences

Abstract

A system that performs the detection and tracking of a face in real-time in real video sequences is presented in this paper. The face is detected in a complex environment by a model of human colour skin. Very good results are obtained, since the colour segmentation removes almost all the complex background and it is realized to a very high-speed, making the system very robust. On the other hand, fast and stable real-time tracking is then achieved via biometric feature extraction of face using connected components labelling. Tracking does not require a precise initial fit of the model. Therefore, the system is initialised automatically using a very simple 2D face detector based on target ellipsoidal shape. Results are presented showing a significant improvement in detection rates when the whole sequence is used instead of a single image of the face. Experiments in tracking are reported. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2007.