Facial Recognition Technology
Three-dimensional face recognition (3D face
recognition) is a modality of facial recognition
methods in which the three-dimensional geometry of
the human face is used.
It has been shown that 3D face recognition
methods can achieve significantly higher accuracy
than their 2D counterparts, rivaling fingerprint
recognition.
3D face recognition has the potential to achieve
better accuracy than its 2D counterpart by measuring
geometry of rigid features on the face. This avoids
such pitfalls of 2D face recognition algorithms as
change in lighting, different facial expressions,
make-up and head orientation. Another approach is to
use the 3D model to improve accuracy of traditional
image based recognition by transforming the head
into a known view. Additionally, most range scanners
acquire both a 3D mesh and the corresponding
texture. This allows combining the output of pure 3D
matchers with the more traditional 2D face
recognition algorithms, thus yielding better
performance (as shown in FRVT 2006).