Detecting head pose from stereo image sequence for active face recognition

An approach to detect human head pose by reconstructing 3D positions of facial points from stereo images is proposed for the implementation of an active face recognition system where fast, correct and automatic head pose detection is of critical importance. Four facial points (pupils and mouth corners) are extracted using a simple but efficient method and their three-dimensional coordinates are reconstructed from stereo images. The orientation of the face relative to the camera plane can be computed from the triangular points and thus eliminating the need to know the image vs. model correspondence or the head physical parameters. Errors of pose detection are analyzed and experimental results are shown. Using the head pose detection system, facial images with suitable pose can be selected automatically from the image sequence as input to the face recognition system.