Photo anthropometric variations in Japanese facial features: Establishment of large-sample standard reference data for personal identification using a three-dimensional capture system

A Preliminary Study of the Reliability of Anatomical Facial Landmarks Used in Facial Comparison

“…In this study, 2D images acquired from scanned 3D images were used, because 3D images are thought to be better for accurately locating landmarks and aligning two facial images than 2D photographs. Atsuchi et al (8) and Ogawa et al (12) reported that 3D images provide more reliable landmark placements as the structure can be more accurately observed in 3D. In addition, 3D facial images enable the more accurate alignment (superimposition) of two facial images (a possible offender's 2D image and the suspect's 3D scanned image) if an appropriate computerized 3D visualization program is used (13,25).…”

“…A critical hurdle in these studies is how to accurately identify and locate landmarks on the facial images and how to achieve an exact alignment of two relevant faces on photographs (superimposition) . If any errors occur in positioning of the landmarks, the reference values obtained from the anthropometric analyses are inevitably erroneous . Practically, several factors can influence the precise positioning of the landmarks: the viewpoint of the CCTV camera ; the image distortion due to the object‐to‐camera distance or camera lens ; the image quality ; and operator subjectivity .…”

“…The topic of reciprocal point-to-point distances has been a matter of concern among researchers in the field, and its use for facial comparison has been introduced (8,12,13). A number of studies have used the reference values obtained from anthropometric measurements, including point-to-point distances, for forensic facial identification, and the results are used in practice (1,12,(14)(15)(16). However, some studies have reported that anthropometric analysis has limited reliability for discriminating between facial images being compared (6,7,11).…”

“…Analyses were only performed on the frontal and lateral views of the face, without reflecting diverse angles (21). In addition, the reasons why the landmarks were used in facial mapping were not clearly explained (6)(7)(8)12,16,17). The landmarks associated with the ears have not thoroughly been investigated, although they have a high degree of individuality in terms of morphology (8,19).…”

The 3D Tele Motion Tracking for the Orthodontic Facial Analysis

“…The disadvantage of using a 3D capture system is that the positioning of some cutaneous landmarks such as gonion and frontozygomatic suture is difficult and usually defined by the bone shape and found by touching the subject's body [20]. Because we were concerned about this problem empirically in the early stage of this study, we paid special attention to the positioning of these landmarks.…”