Efficient 3D data representation for biometric applications

Abstract

An important issue in many of today's biometric applications is the development of efficient and accurate techniques for representing related 3D data. Such data is often available through the process of digitization of complex geometric objects which are of importance to biometric applications. For example, in the area of 3D face recognition a digital point cloud of data corresponding to a given face is usually provided by a 3D digital scanner. For efficient data storage and for identification/authentication in a timely fashion such data requires to be represented using a few parameters or variables which are meaningful. Here we show how mathematical techniques based on Partial Differential Equations (PDEs) can be utilized to represent complex 3D data where the data can be parameterized in an efficient way. For example, in the case of a 3D face we show how it can be represented using PDEs whereby a handful of key facial parameters can be identified for efficient storage and verification.