| This thesis presents a real-time facial recognition system utilizing our human visual system algorithms coupled with classical Logical Binary Pattern (LBP) feature descriptors. Specifically, we first use the Weber's Law based human visual system to obtain decomposed images. Then, features are extracted using logarithmic Logical Binary Patterns (LBP). The contributions of this work include introducing region weighted models for facial components. We investigate two models, Hybrid region weighted model and Hybrid-Holistic region weighted model, and compare and contrast the performance on public databases of faces. Finally, the similarity ranking is obtained by fusing the chi-squared distance evaluated from each individual facial region. The system can quickly find and rank the closest matches of a test image to a database of stored images. For our prototype application, we supplied the system testing images and found their best matches in the database of training images.;This system can also be applied in many real life applications. One of them is automatically matching composite sketches to facial photographs. Different sketches hand drawn by artists or composite sketches synthesized using facial composite software can be compared to a database of photographs for the closest match. This is a particularly useful application for law enforcement agencies. Furthermore, other applications that could utilize this work include finding missing children or victims of human trafficking. Our methodology produces a low cost and efficient detection and recognition that weights more important facial features that may still be important to identify individuals, even though many years may have passed between the times the last known photograph was taken. Often times, age progressed composite sketches are created to aid in the search. These sketches can be used in our system to help find individuals that have gone missing or to help locate wanted criminals.;Finally, we investigate the limitations of the system by applying the algorithms for other non-human facial features, namely matching animals. These experiments reveal the specialized features that researchers must take into consideration when searching for any subject possessing a "face".;Experimental results have clearly shown the promising performance and a great value to law enforcement agencies. |
