3D Face Imaging in 40 Milliseconds

Roland Piquepaille writes "Computer scientists at Sheffield Hallam University, UK, have developed a new face recognition software which can produce an exact 3D image of a face within 40 milliseconds. A pattern of light is projected on your face, creating a 2D image, from which an accurate 3D representation is generated. This technology should speed airport check-ins, but it could also be used in banks or for checking ID cards as it allows full identification in less than one second."

Comments

database?

[switchfutguy]

what about the time it takes the image to be looked up in the database? i'm sure that would take it more time to verify...

Re:database?

[buckhead_buddy]

switchfutguy wrote:

what about the time it takes the image to be looked up in the database? i'm sure that would take it more time to verify...

I think the article is implying that the real utility will be in matching the physical face with the biometric data stored on the identity card. Whatever advances are made there are independent of the verification of the card to the government registry.

1. Create biometric data out of face holding attached to person with card.
2. Verify face to biometric data on ID card
3. Verify ID card codes to central database for authenticity

Biometric verification can be done parallel to waiting for the data about whether the card is authentic or not.

Heck, before the legislation setting up the ID cards passed, this speedy new biometric verification wasn't even broken to the public yet. All of the debate about verifying the biometric data in passing this ID card law was under the old school assumptions that it would be a friendly cashier or steward "verifying" that the person looked vaguely like the photo and was approximately the same height, weight, race, and age as listed in government records. Verifying the central records match the card is a problem that has to be taken care of regardless of the "speed" in verifying the biometric part with the human.

Of course, It's sort of disturbing that people knew this "recognition revolution" was in the pipeline but deliberately didn't say anything until after the legislative debate was over and all of the people worried about abuse of a system like this could be swept aside as science fiction freaks.

I'm still skeptical of the actual technique. (Heck, it's hard enough to verify "automatically" that a JPEG says HELLO WORLD when one has to deal with anti-aliasing and different fonts. How are they going to deal with people who gain or loose a lot of weight since the biometrics were taken.) But the real worry appears to be that the people developing it and supporting its development wanted it kept under wraps until all moral debate was silenced.

Re:database?

[fantasticalmonkey]

"How are they going to deal with people who gain or loose a lot of weight since the biometrics were taken"

Surely they could update the card each time it was verified. This way the changes would be extremely small and it should still pass.

There would still be the problem if someone didn't use their card in a long time, and gained/lost a lot of weight (for example), but I am assuming that the ID cards would be used for almost everything eventually (payments, keycards, etc), so the chance of not having your card verified for an extended period of time would be much less likely. Also, I suppose they could allow a slight difference between the scan taken and the data stored but it gets noted, and a proper match has to be made within 3 attempts.

There will obviously be problems if someone has an injury which drastically alters their face, etc, but they will probably be able to work around this eventually.

Who knows..

Re:database?

[Spy der Mann]

How are they going to deal with people who gain or loose a lot of weight since the biometrics were taken.

If you can recognize your brother after he has gained weight, I'm sure the biometrics can recognize him, too. This is why the algorithms are programmed to have a margin of error. Like "it's 80% probable that this picture belongs to the person in question".

Re:database?

[swillden]

If you can recognize your brother after he has gained weight, I'm sure the biometrics can recognize him, too.

Sure, as long as the matching algorithm is as sophisticated and accurate as the one in your brain, the one developed over millions of years of evolution of a social animal, and then fine-tuned by years and decades of personal feedback training.

The fact that you can recognize your brother after he has gained weight is evidence that it's possible to perform such recognition. It, however, in no way means that any matching algrothm we can create will match the feat.

In this particular case (weight gain), most facial recognition matchers probably won't be fooled, as long as the gain isn't too great. Not because the matching algorithms are anywhere near as good as the human brain, but because the matchers focus primarily on bone structure, which doesn't change with weight -- unless the change is so great that it hides previously visible structure under a smooth, round layer of fat.

In general, though, facial recognition technology is lousy. It's improving, but it's not remotely as good as what people can do.

Re:database?

[thedletterman]

"Outstanding warrants number in the hunderds of millions"

I think you need ot shove that statistic right back up your ass where you got it from. Like I said in the post, that was a number for that State, but even still, the US population is less than 300 million. So I guess like everyone between the ages of 18-60 has a warrant for their arrest.

Re:database?

[Dashing Leech]

"Uh, yeah, because facial recognition software is so accurate."

Actually, I've worked on 3D facial recognition algorithms and they can be incredibly accurate. You are correct that 2D facial recognition algos have limited accuracy, but that's largely because 2D cameras merely measure the amount of light reflected into each pixel, so any real-world dimensional measurement is an interpretation of feature locations and extrapolated into 3D. Perspective views is big problem as are lighting conditions, clutter, and disguises.

A 3D sensor directly measures the 3D shape and can fit it quite easily to the reference model. We've done 3D face matches with wigs, glasses, and beards at the same time and still correctly identified the person. You really have to cover up a significant amount of the shape of the face to fool it.

And even then, that was for identification. This application is verification, so a disguise would be counterproductive. You'd have to take someone with a similar face shape and use professional face-shaping make-up (like for movies) to make an identically-shaped face to fool it into believing you were someone you were not. Not just one that looks the same, but is actually the same size and shape. Hard to do, especially without someone clearly seeing you are wearing the fake features, despite what Mission Impossible or other movies make us believe.

That being said, I don't know the statistics on similarities of faces. I would certainly bet identical twins could fool it, though I'm not sure how identical their face shapes are statistically.

Re:database?

[Dashing Leech]

"As someone who works on validation of computer target recognition, I recommend being very skeptical."

As someone who has written, studied, tested, validated, and worked with 3D target recognition and facial recognition algorithms, I agree to a point. I only agree because it's always good to be skeptical of these things until the (unbiased) evidence has been presented.

That being said, the jump from 2D to 3D recognition is nothing but revolutionary in terms of recognition and verification accuracy. Beards, cosmetic surgery, and even swelling are not major impediments. They do reduce the match, but less than you'd think. There are areas of the face that don't change much even in such cases. 3D face recognition is more about measuring the shape of the skull. The skin generally follows the shape of the skull except where there are heavy fat deposits, or of course if you grow a beard. Unless you're changes were to the extent of a normal face to something like the Elephant Man or Eric Stoltz in "Mask" (no, not the Jim Carry movie), it's still going to do quite well.

And even then, the application here is verification. If the changes were enough to make it fail, that would just mean you'd have to go through either a secondary manual security check and/or update the biometrics. It's not like you could, say, pretend to be Tom Cruise and say your face changed. If you don't look like Tom Cruise with a beard or fatter face, and have the same shaped skull, and have the other security info to back you up, you're going to get your biometrics updated.

As a general comment (not specific to the parent post), I know /. likes to pick apart these things, but /. readers are not of so superior intelligence that they can come up with flaws in 2 minutes that experts in the area of research have not addressed, studied, or solved in years of research.

Hrm.

[Limburgher]

Impressive, but what if I shave?

Re:Hrm.

[Watson Ladd]

Or put dots on your face with a magic marker. Subgraph Isomorphisim is in a class by itself in complexity theory.

Re:Hrm.

[Tablizer]

Impressive, but what if I shave?

It is okay, Osama, you were passed up by two presidents, hundreds of Preditor flights, and thousands of US soldiers. I doubt some geek toy will do you in.

Re:Hrm.

[Limburgher]

Shit, all that, only to be unmasked by a /.er. Arghhhh! ;)

Great

[mcc]

I can't wait until the day when I get punched in the face, and suddenly I can't use ATMs anymore.

Re:Great

[thedletterman]

Fcial recognition relies on probability matches, not positive identification. it's just a filter, of varying sensitivity. even being punched in the face or gaining ten pounds might not invalidate your entry. it scans off areas that aren't very suceptible to change with weight or aging. The top of your eye socket, the distance between your pupils, the corners of your mouth, your cheek bone... don't think your going to walk up to an atm and take out cash, you're going to need your implantable rfid and a facial scan to make that happen.

Airport check ins???

[Matts]

I hate reading things like this - the marketers got hold of it and decided that airport checkins were clearly a problem, and this would help. Sorry, but that's BS.

Airport checkins take time because they are a security procedure. The "recognition" part of it takes seconds as it is - just swipe the passport or other form of ID. What takes the time is confirming that the traveller's luggage hasn't been modified, finding a decent seat on the plane, and labelling up the luggage they drop. I've never been held up because they couldn't figure out who I was. Ever.

Zit!

[Tablizer]

So if you get the Mother of All Zits on travel day, you walk/swim to Hawaii.

Great-Lights out.

[Anonymous Coward]

Why wait?

Modifiable

[TheStonepedo]

This is a very modifiable "biometric." I lost a little piece of my nose in a nasty bicycle accident. Some people get facelifts, nosejobs, and botox injections. Many men have differing amounts of facial hair on a day-to-day basis. People who fly infrequently could gain or lose a good deal of weight between flights and have different facial dimensions.
The error tolerances that would have to be built into an automated face scanner would have to be large. I would rather have a human check my ID in a few milliseconds more than have an inaccurate system for verification. Show me a 40 millisecond thumbprint scanner with an international database and we'll talk.

Re:Modifiable

[radiotyler]

Speaking of that, I'd love to see some folks in the special effects industry play around with these biometrics systems to see how easy it is to spoof someones face, or invalidate their entry in the database with make-up or whatever magic they use these days. Why are there never any MythBusters around when I need them?

Camera

[HermanAB]

Sounds like Kodak moment to me... :)

at best, incremental

[penguin-collective]

3D-based face recognition has been tried before, and you can buy 3D scanners that use projected light patterns commercially. So, there isn't really anything particularly new about this.

Goodnight, privacy.

[TheNoxx]

You know, the similarities between the growth of technology and the "fictional" world in the book "The Traveler" are getting a little too eerie for me.

I wonder how long until people start using diluted steroids and such to temporarily alter their face's shape (as mentioned in the book, of course) to get around the rapidly advancing face recognition technology, for good or evil motives?

works in the dark

[twitter]

I wonder if an infrared pattern would work. You would not even know you had been scanned.

Pffffttttt.....

[Anonymous Coward]

If faces are made illegal, only criminals will have faces!!!

but it could also be used in banks

[JimBobJoe]

but it could also be used in banks

I believe the biggest problem banks have is ordinary robberies. I can't say I've heard of any situation of someone using someone else's identity to wipe out their bank account.

Even in countries that do not have identification cards (and, after all, the english speaking world fell into this category until only fairly recently) I haven't heard anything to suggest banks are having/have had troubles identifying customer's correctly. (The identification collected when opening an account now is for Patriot Act purposes.) The lowly ATM with 4 digit pin is used successfully without identification (phishing is its main weakness.) Thanks to debit/credit cards, identification is now even less relevant to banking.

Why's this crap always being pushed on banks?

Are the shapes of our faces truly individual?

[Slight3r]

I know that things like the patterns in our eyes, fingerprints, and the blood vessels in our faces are never supposed to repeat in somebody else, but what about the shape of a face? If they build in the tolerance for weight gain/loss, facial hair, etc. could somebody else have a face similar enough to get through? What about identical twins?

Re:This Is A Good Thing

[symbolset]

..we can stop evildoers in their tracks before committing..

Congratulations. You've invented precrime.

Wait a second!!

[Symp0sium]

My twin brother is going to empty my bank account now! thanks Sheffield Hallam.

Foolproof Security?

[NorbrookC]

FTA: giving a digital mapping of a face that would form part of a fool-proof security system.

I have yet to hear of a "fool-proof" security system of any sort. I've heard many security schemes touted over the years as being "unbreakable" or "fool-proof", and yet somehow someone manages to break them or fool them. This is what happens when PR hype takes over instead of substantive information.

This is an interesting technology that may have applications down the line, but it's still new, hasn't been given a wide range of testing, and appears to be something that can be spoofed by facial changes. The PR hack at the university needs to switch to decaf.

Re:This Is A Good Thing

[Anonymous Coward]

Your behind the times by five years:

Face Recognition at Florida Superbowl


A ticket to Super Bowl XXXV in Tampa Bay, Florida, didn't just get you a seat at the biggest professional football game of the year. Those who attended the January 2000 event were also part of the largest police lineup ever conducted, although they may not have been aware of it at the time. The Tampa Police Department was testing out a new technology, called FaceIt, that allows snapshots of faces from the crowd to be compared to a database of criminal mugshots.


And the results:
The Register on Face Recognition software

By leveraging the Florida open-records law, the watchdog organization obtained system logs proving that the Visionics contraption has thus far failed to identify one single crook or pervert listed in the department's photographic database, while falsely identifying 'a large number' of innocent citizens.

"The earliest logs provided by the department show activity for July 12, 13, 14, and 20, 2001. On those dates, the system operators logged fourteen instances in which the system indicated a possible match. Of the fourteen matches on those four days, all were false alarms," the ACLU notes.

The Tampa coppers started using the system in June of this year, and abandoned it in August.

Security?

[bmecoli]

Screw security, I'm going to hook this device up and make a model of my face so that I can play as myself in *insert modern FPS here*

Obligatory

[Shadyman]

I, for one, welcome our new biometric overlords.

Imaging != Identification

[nick_davison]

An accurate 3D model of a human face can be constructed in 40ms?

Excuse my whilst I almost jump up and down with glee. I mean it's not as if a typical high res photograph can be taken in 1/300th of a second (given decent light) and a bunch of them can't be taken simultaneously with a bank of cameras - leaving almost all of the remainder of 1/25th of a second to quickly calculate a 3D model using the same digital photogrametry that's been around for years on a powerful enough system.

To put it in context, there have been camera systems that can film an actor "in 3D" - and then use that co-ordinate data to manipulate a 3D character - for TV use for the last half decade or so. By definition, at 25 frames per second, it too builds a 3D model within 1/25 of a second (40ms). The only difference is higher accuracy.

So, OK, they've come up with a new technique for projecting a dot pattern that makes it even easier to record a set of points than the old annoying stick on black dots method. Even so, quickly capturing a 3D image isn't radically new - a bank of cameras can capture it in far less time than 40ms and you can do the processing in a staggering 2-3 whole seconds as the person steps away before the next person steps up.

The slow bit has always been comparing a complex 3D model against a huge database and identifying matches when people move their facial muscles between each image.

Of note is the simple fact: This talks about how "fast" 3D imaging is now available (although it has been by years but we'll ignore that) which is a totally different concept to actually comparing that information against several million, if not hundreds of millions, of other entries.

OK, so fair enough, the article talks about comparing someone to a specific record to see if they're who they claim to be. Again, nothing that couldn't already be done with a bank of decent CMOS based cameras. They imply that this is "more" accurate (which I still dispute is any more accurate than a bank of 10MP CMOS cameras and traditional photogrametry) but make absolutely no reference to cracking the real problem of people's 3D facial structure changing as their muscles move, as they gain weight, etc.

So - they have a quick method of creating a 3D snapshot, which could be done already, and haven't solved any of the real problems that make a simple 3D snapshot useless (comparing against large numbers of possibilities, parameterizing 3D points that move as faces do). So absolutely nothing then? Sweet.

I wonder if I could come up with a new, different, but absolutely no better technology for something people also still can't do very well. If so, I wonder how much a breathy press release and vapid article would net me in grants for my research?

3D Faces - The Movie

[0x15]

If this interests you, MERI has additional information in the form of a movie about it.

Even worse...

[John Harrison]

The article implies that you have to be enrolled using this system in order to it to be used to verify your identity. So it isn't any use in finding those that there is a high resolution photograph of without the 2d pattern projected on them to generate the 3d surface. This is only useful for proving that someone is carrying their own valid document, not for picking known criminals out of crowds.

You wanna something foolproof ?

[aepervius]

Here is it :
Combine together two of those :
* iris recon
* 3d face recon
* fingerprint
with one of those :
* a pin code
and one of those :
* a secure card with a chip and a recent encryption technology

As it is always said here on /., something you are, something you have, something you know.

Deceptive News Article

[NewsSmellsFishey]

Hello, first post and all. Saw this news article and it made me laugh. 40ms for taking the picture, maybe, but that doesn't include all the other time involved. I'm a student at Sheffield Hallam and I've been taught by the lecturers involved. What's more I've had my face scanned in. I can tell you that 40ms is very, very deceptive. So maybe it does take 40ms to take the photograph but it isn't a stunningly high resolution photo and even then it is only a photo. The system works by taking a normal photograph and scanning your face separately. The two are put together later in post-processing and from my experience it takes several days of fiddling with parameters, avoiding marking assignments and not paying attention to students. I wanted the data for my face from when it had been scanned. It took me nearly a week of nagging to get the lecturers involved to sort it out and in the end I had to get it off their computers myself (an old mac). 40ms doesn't really include the time it takes for you to cut through the bureaucracy of Sheffield Hallam