US 20070172126A1
(i9) United States
(12) Patent Application Publication oo) Pub. No.: US 2007/0172126 Al
Kitamura (43) Pub. Date: Jul. 26,2007
(54) FACE DETECTION METHOD, DEVICE AND PROGRAM
(75) Inventor: Yoshiro Kitamura, Kanagawa-ken
(JP)
Correspondence Address:
BIRCH STEWART KOLASCH & BIRCH
PO BOX 747
FALLS CHURCH, VA 22040-0747
Publication Classification
Int. CI.
G06K 9/46
G06K 9/00
U.S. CI
(51)
(52)
(57)
To detect faces contained in an image with changing posi-
tion, inclination and orientation of a face to be detected, an
indicator value for each position, inclination and orientation
is calculated, which indicates probability of a partial image
at the position being a face image having the inclination and
the orientation. Then, the partial images having the indicator
values not less than a first threshold are extracted as candi-
dates. When a predetermined evaluation value indicating
reliability of a certain candidate having a predetermined
inclination and a first orientation is not less than a prede-
termined threshold value, another candidate having the
predetermined inclination and a second orientation is dis-
criminated as being a true face. When the candidates having
the indicator values not less than a second threshold are
discriminated as being true faces, the second threshold is
lowered for another candidate having the predetermined
inclination and a second orientation for discrimination.
