Long Range Cross-Spectral Face Recognition: Matching SWIR Against Visible Light Images

Cross-band facial recognition is a difficult task, even for the most robust matching algorithms. Inherent factors such as camera effects (blur, noise, and sampling), and variation in pose and illumination, are known to negatively affect algorithm performance. Because cross-band matching algorithms are in the infancy of development, it is currently unclear if their performance is superior to human observers performing this task. In this paper, we present findings from a pilot study aimed at analyzing the ability of an ensemble of human observers to perform the 1:N cross-band facial identification task on degraded facial images, where the probe and gallery images were captured in different spectral bands (visible, SWIR, MWIR and LWIR). Results from our 11-alternative forced choice perception study indicate that: 1) a group of observers familiar with even a subset of subjects in a gallery set are, on average, able to perform the task with higher probability (p > 0.15) than a group of observers with no prior exposure, and 2) task performance for both the familiar and unfamiliar groups increased 1.5-3.4% when matching multi-spectral probe images to galleries of 24-bit color facial images vs. 8-bit monochrome facial images. For the SWIR case, however, we observed a 9.1% increase in performance with 24-bit facial images vs. 8-bit facial images. Results from this study can be leveraged for future work directly comparing cross-band matching performance of humans vs. algorithms.

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 80%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Human task performance baseline: results from a cross-band facial identification perception study

Byrd

Choi

2015

“…[1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11] While exploring recognition limits in visible light remains an important problem, cross-spectral face recognition takes us beyond these limits and allows performing recognition at night and in harsh environments such as seeing through fog and rain. 12,13 These imaging conditions can be typically observed in military and law enforcement applications.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Image disparity in cross-spectral face recognition: mitigating camera and atmospheric effects

Cao

Schmid

2016

Self Cite

Matching facial images acquired in different electromagnetic spectral bands remains a challenge. An example of this type of comparison is matching active or passive infrared (IR) against a gallery of visible face images. When combined with cross-distance, this problem becomes even more challenging due to deteriorated quality of the IR data. As an example, we consider a scenario where visible light images are acquired at a short standoff distance while IR images are long range data. To address the difference in image quality due to atmospheric and camera effects -typical degrading factors observed in long range data, we propose two approaches that allow to coordinate image quality of visible and IR face images. The first approach involves Gaussian-based smoothing functions applied to images acquired at a short distance (visible light images in the case we analyze). The second approach involves denoising and enhancement applied to low quality IR face images. A quality measure tool called Adaptive Sharpness Measure is utilized as guidance for the quality parity process, which is an improvement of the famous Tenengrad method. For recognition algorithm, a composite operator combining Gabor filters, Local Binary Patterns (LBP), generalized LBP and Weber Local Descriptor (WLD) is used. The composite operator encodes both magnitude and phase responses of the Gabor filters. The combining of LBP and WLD utilizes both the orientation and intensity information of edges. Different IR bands -short-wave infrared (SWIR) and near-infrared (NIR), and different long standoff distances are considered. The experimental results show that in all cases the proposed technique of image quality parity (both approaches) benefits the final recognition performance.

“…[1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10] As observed, active IR energy is less affected by scattering and absorption due to smoke or dust than visible light. Also, unlike visible spectrum imaging, active IR imaging can be used to extract not only exterior but also useful subcutaneous anatomical information.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Composite multi-lobe descriptor for cross spectral face recognition: matching active IR to visible light images

Cao

Schmid

2015

Self Cite

Matching facial images across electromagnetic spectrum presents a challenging problem in the field of biometrics and identity management. An example of this problem includes cross spectral matching of active infrared (IR) face images or thermal IR face images against a dataset of visible light images. This paper describes a new operator named Composite Multi-Lobe Descriptor (CMLD) for facial feature extraction in cross spectral matching of near-infrared (NIR) or short-wave infrared (SWIR) against visible light images. The new operator is inspired by the design of ordinal measures. The operator combines Gaussian-based multi-lobe kernel functions, Local Binary Pattern (LBP), generalized LBP (GLBP) and Weber Local Descriptor (WLD) and modifies them into multi-lobe functions with smoothed neighborhoods. The new operator encodes both the magnitude and phase responses of Gabor filters. The combining of LBP and WLD utilizes both the orientation and intensity information of edges. Introduction of multi-lobe functions with smoothed neighborhoods further makes the proposed operator robust against noise and poor image quality. Output templates are transformed into histograms and then compared by means of a symmetric Kullback-Leibler metric resulting in a matching score. The performance of the multi-lobe descriptor is compared with that of other operators such as LBP, Histogram of Oriented Gradients (HOG), ordinal measures, and their combinations. The experimental results show that in many cases the proposed method, CMLD, outperforms the other operators and their combinations. In addition to different infrared spectra, various standoff distances from close-up (1.5 m) to intermediate (50 m) and long (106 m) are also investigated in this paper. Performance of CMLD is evaluated for of each of the three cases of distances.