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Performance and Code Efficiency

In an effort to maintain computational efficiency and to allow the eventual adaptation of the algorithm to face tracking applications, intense optimization of the code has been performed. Although further development is in progress, the algorithm is currently fast and compact enough to run interactively on most generic platforms.

Note, first, the sequential hierarchical search which proceeds from large scales to small scales. This allows a rapid convergence if the face is dominant in the image. Furthermore, the algorithm does not always flow through the complete loop. It stops as soon as one of the modules reports a failure and loops back to an earlier stage. For example, we do not search for a mouth if no eyes are found. In this case, no time is wasted in the mouth module.

Additionally, we utilized special programming techniques to reduce the run-time. For instance, wave propagation is used to generate the symmetry maps. This provides a computational efficiency that makes the symmetry operator a practical tool. The 3D normalization algorithm is also extremely efficient and uses look-up tables and minimal calculations for increased speed. The 10 normalizations and DFFS calculations required for nose-localization also utilize small mug-shot images and eigenfaces to increase efficiency.

Note the upper bound on the run-times for each module in Figure [*]. The execution times are measure on an SGI Indy machine which has a rating equivalent to that of a 1996 home personal computer. The efficiency of the code allows a face to be found in an image in under 1 second if it is the dominant structure. However, we loop through all objects in the scene in an attempt to find all possible faces. Thus, the algorithm's loop is traversed multiple times even though a face could have been detected in an earlier iteration of the loop.


next up previous contents
Next: Graphical User Interface Up: Implementation Previous: System Overview
Tony Jebara
2000-06-23