Head orientation estimation using particle filtering in multiview scenarios

Abstract

This paper presents a novel approach to the problem of determining head pose estimation and face 3D orientation of several people in low resolution sequences from multiple calibrated cameras. Spatial redundancy is exploited and the head in the scene is approximated by an ellipsoid. Skin patches from each detected head are located in each camera view. Data fusion is performed by back-projecting skin patches from single images onto the estimated 3D head model, thus providing a synthetic reconstruction of the head appearance. A particle filter is employed to perform the estimation of the head pan angle of the person under study. A likelihood function based on the face appearance is introduced. Experimental results proving the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm are provided for the SmartRoom scenario of the CLEAR Evaluation 2007 Head Orientation dataset. © 2008 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.