Accurate and efficient face recognition from video

As a problem of high practical appeal but outstanding challenges, computer-based face recognition remains a topic of extensive research attention. In this paper we are specifically interested in the task of identifying a person from multiple training and query images. Thus, a novel method is proposed which advances the state-of-the-art in set-based face recognition. Our method is based on a previously described invariant in the form of generic shape-illumination effects. The contributions include: (i) an analysis of computational demands of the original method and a demonstration of its practical limitations, (ii) a novel representation of personal appearance in the form of linked mixture models in image and pose-signature spaces, and (iii) an efficient (in terms of storage needs and matching time) manifold re-illumination algorithm based on the aforementioned representation. An evaluation and comparison of the proposed method with the original generic shape-illumination algorithm shows that comparably high recognition rates are achieved on a large data set (1.5% error on 700 face sets containing 100 individuals and extreme illumination variation) with a dramatic improvement in matching speed (over 700 times for sets containing 1600 faces) and storage requirements (independent of the number of training images).