Real-Time Rotation-Invariant Face Detection Using Combined Depth Estimation and Ellipse Fitting

This paper reports a combined depth- and model-based face detection and tracking approach. The proposed algorithm consists of four functional modules; i) color-based candidate region extraction, ii) generation of the depth histogram for handling occlusion, iii) rotation-invariant face region detection using ellipse fitting, and iv) face tracking based on motion prediction. This technique solved the occlusion problem under complicated environment by detecting the face candidate region based on the depth-based histogram and skin colors. The angle of rotation was estimated by the ellipse fitting method in the detected candidate regions. The face region was finally determined by inversely rotating the candidate regions by the estimated angle using Haar-like features that were robustly trained robustly by the frontal face.