Edge and Keypoint Detection in Facial Regions

In this contribution we introduce a method for the automatic detection of facial features and characteristic anatomical keypoints. In the application we are aiming at the anatomical landmarks are used to accurately measure facial features. Our approach is essentially based on a selective search and sequential tracking of characteristic edge and line structures of the facial object to be searched. It integrates model knowledge to guarantee a consistent interpretation of the abundance of local features. The search and the tracking is controlled in each step by interpreting the already derived edge and line information in the context of the whole considered region. For our application, the edge and line detection has to be very precise and flexible. Therefore, we apply a powerful filtering scheme based on steerable filters.