Real-Time Detection of Eyes and Faces

Perceptual user interfaces will require the detection, tracking, and recognition of faces and other body and facial features. This paper introduces a robust, accurate, and low cost real-time solution for the eye and face detection problem. The method uses two infra-red illumination sources to generate bright and dark pupil images, which are combined to robustly detect pupils. Once the pupils are detected, the inter-ocular distance is used to determine the size and position of the bounding box around the face. The position of other facial features such as eye brows, nose, and mouth can be estimated once the face is detected. A real-time implementation of the system, which process 30 frames per second using interlaced images of resolution 640 480 pixels, is also presented.