110
Vol. 1, No. 2, November 2009
3D Face Recognition using Combination Rule for
Horizontal and Vertical Face Contour
Wei Jen Chew1, Kah Phooi Seng1 and Li-Minn Ang1
1
The University of Nottingham, Faculty of Engineering,
Jalan Broga, 43500 Semenyih, Selangor Darul Ehsan, Malaysia
Wei-Jen.Chew@nottingham.edu.my, Jasmine.Seng@nottingham.edu.my, Kenneth.Ang@nottingham.edu.my
Abstract: In this paper, the effect of using either horizontal or
vertical face contour for 3D face recognition was investigated.
First, the face contours were extracted out. Then, 2 different
methods, which are the contour distance method and a proposed
contour angle method were performed on the face contours. A
combination rule was also proposed to help combine the
matching values obtained. Simulation results show that the
proposed angle method is the better option. Besides that, by
combining both horizontal and vertical contours, a better
recognition rate can be achieved. This proves that the
combination rule proposed is a feasible method. The results in
this paper show that good recognition rate can be obtained
without the use of complex calculations.
Keywords: Face contours, Combination rule, Distance
method, Angle method.
1. Introduction
Face recognition is an area of research that has been
explored for many years. It is one of the popular biometric
systems that can be used for security purposes. An automatic
face recognition system is able to identify unknown people
in a crowd without the intervention of humans. This makes
it an important security tool and therefore warrants
extensive research on it to help create a robust automatic
face recognition system.
Earlier works have focused on automatic face recognition
using 2D images [1][2]. This is because only 2D images
were easily available at that time. Although promising
results have been obtained, it was observed that 2D images
still suffer from 2 main problems, which are pose and
illumination changes [3].
Therefore, focus then shifted to using 3D images for
recognition purposes. This is only feasible in the last few
years since improvement in technology has finally made it
possible for 3D images to be easily captured. The advantage
in using 3D images is that they are not affected by pose and
illumination changes [3]. This is because 3D images rely on
the depth values, which is the distance of the face from the
camera, for recognition purposes, thus avoiding the
illumination problem. This differs from 2D images that use
the intensity value that change under different lighting.
Besides that, 3D images have the advantage of being able to
be rotated and translated, hence solving the pose change
problem since they can be manipulated into any required
pose, unlike the static 2D images.
A common method for 3D face recognition is to perform
surface matching. First, 2 faces are aligned together using
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Iterative Closest Point (ICP) [4], which basically rotates and
translates the two faces until a best possible fit is obtained.
Then, the surface distance difference between the 2 faces is
calculated. The face with the shortest distance would be the
match. However, this could be a time consuming method
since the whole face surface contains many data points.
Besides that, using ICP to align every pair of faces together
can also take up time as well as be inefficient.
Hence, another option is to use either the face contour
lines or the profile lines to perform face recognition. The
contour lines can be obtained horizontally or vertically from
the face while the profile lines are based on the outer shape
of the face. The advantage of using contour or profile lines
for recognition is that they contain less data points.
Therefore, processing time would be faster.
In this paper, the effectiveness of using horizontal and
vertical face contours for recognition purposes is
investigated. An angle method is proposed to perform face
matching and this method is compared with the distance
method to determine which method is better. Finally, a
combination rule is proposed to combine recognition rates
obtained from different methods or contours to obtain an
improved recognition rate.
Section 2 is about previous works using face contours
while Section 3 will discuss about the contour extraction
method. Section 4 will discuss about the matching methods
used, Section 5 discusses about the proposed combination
rule, Section 6 is about the different combination of methods
investigated, Section 7 is the results and discussion section
while finally Section 8 is the conclusion.
2. Background
The contours of a face can be obtained horizontally or
vertically. A vertical face contour is obtained by slicing an
upright face vertically level by level. These iso-contours are
then compared with each other to determine the identity of
the person. Chua et al. [5] proposed a point signature
method to obtain facial curves. Firstly, a point on the face,
usually the nose tip, is chosen. Next, a sphere of a
predetermined radius is then created. Aligning the sphere
centre and the nose tip, the shape that is created from the
intersection between the sphere and the face would be the
contour wanted. Iso-geodesic curve is another type of curve
that can be obtained from a 3D face [6]. For this method, the
curve is obtained by selecting all points that have the same
 (IJCNS) International Journal of Computer and Network Security, 111
geodesic distance from the nose tip. Sometimes, a
combination of different curves is used to perform
recognition. Jahanbin et al. [7] used iso-geodesic and iso-
depth curves to perform recognition while Mpiperis et al. [8]
used point signatures and iso-contours to look for a match.
Generally, matching is usually achieved by calculating the
contour distance difference.
Besides using vertical face contours, horizontal face
contours can also be used to differentiate faces. Lee et al.
[9], Wu et al. [10], Ebers et al. [11] and Li et al. [12] used
different combinations of horizontal and vertical facial
profiles to determine the identity of various faces. The
vertical profiles used are not similar to the vertical contours
used in the earlier discussed methods. Instead, they are the
vertical face profile through the nose tip. Since it is easier to
slice the face horizontally and vertically level by level, it
was decided that this paper would propose a method that is
able to determine the identity of an unknown face by only
using their horizontal and vertical face contours.
3. Face Contour Extraction
In this paper, it is proposed that face matching is achieved
by using the contours of the face. These contours can either
be obtained horizontally or vertically. This is unique only to
3D images since they have the depth value. Basically, the
contour map obtained is similar to those found in a world
terrain map. To extract these contours, there are two main
steps. The first step is to determine which face level the
contour will be extracted from while the second step is to
convert the contour extracted into useful data. The methods
used are further explained in the following sub sections.
3.1 Contour Level Extraction
Selecting a suitable contour is important to obtain a good
recognition rate. For the vertical type, contours near the
nose tip or near the ears may not be suitable since they do
not seem to have much differentiation from one face to
another. Hence, in this paper, it was decided that the vertical
contours would be extracted out from 5 levels, which are 20,
25, 30, 35 and 40 levels below the nose tip. As for the
horizontal type, 50 levels above and below the nose tip were
used, with an interval of 10 between each level. This is
because the face around this area contains many shape
changes horizontally.
Before extracting the contours, the first step to perform is
to align the 3D faces in the same direction. This is to ensure
that consistent face contour slices can be obtained from each
face. Alignment is performed by locating the nose tip,
determining the face angle and then rotating the face to a
standard angle [13]. For this paper, all the faces are set to be
frontal facing before the next step of contour extraction is
performed.
At each level, a contour outline of the face can be
obtained, as shown in Figure 1 for vertical contours and
Figure 2 for horizontal contours. However, this outline
actually consists of a set of data points in a matrix and is not
arranged in an orderly fashion. This means that the first
data point could be representing a point on the lower face
Vol. 1, No. 2, November 2009
while the second data point could be representing a data
point at the top of the face. Therefore, the next step is to
arrange the data obtained to enable it to be easily used.
3.2 Contour Data Selection
The matrix containing the contour data points consists of
many data points but not all of them are needed for face
matching purposes. In this paper, it is proposed that only
half the vertical face contour is required for the matching
algorithm. This is because the human face is usually quite
symmetrical and hence using only one side should not make
much difference in the matching process. By only selecting
half the face, the proposed method is able to reduce the
amount of data by half. For the horizontal face contour, only
the front half of the face contour is used.
Figure 1. Example of vertical face contours
Figure 2. Example of horizontal face contours
Since the data in the vertical contour matrix is not
arranged in an orderly manner, to obtain only half of the
face contour points, a threshold needs to be set. Only data
that is over a certain value would be selected. Hence, while
aligning the face earlier, the nose tip should be aligned to
position (0,0,0). Therefore, when choosing data points from
the vertical contour matrix, only data points with x values
more than zero would be chosen.
Next, the group of the face contour points is sorted out so
that they are in an order from one end of the face to the
other end. This is achieved using the Equation (1), (2), (3),
(4) and (5).
y1 = min(Cy > Yi)
(1)
y2 = max(Cy < Yi)
(2)
y1 − y2
mc =
x1 − x2
(3)
Cc = y1 – mcx1
(4)
112
Yi − Cc
xc =
mc
(5)
where Cy is the y values of a face contour and Yi is the y
level investigated.
The vertical contour data points are spread out as shown
in Figure 1 while the horizontal contour data points are
arranged similar to the contours in Figure 2 when they are
flipped 900. To create the standard contour matrix, the first
step is to determine the contour x value for a fixed set of y
values. It is not possible to extract these x values out from
the original contour matrix since there might not be an x
value that have the exact y value. Hence, at every
predetermined y value, an estimate of the x value is
obtained.
Firstly, the closest y values from the contour matrix above
and below a predetermined Yi value is obtained using Eq.
(1) and Eq. (2). Next, the gradient, mc, and Cc value of the
line joining y1 and y2 is determined using Eq. (3) and Eq.
(4). Finally, the corresponding xc value for the
predetermined Yi value is obtained using Eq. (5). By using
these steps for every face contour, a standard matrix is
obtained. This enables further processing of the contour
values to be performed more efficiently.
4. Contour Matching Method
Once the standard matrix for the face contours is obtained,
the next step is to determine their match. In this paper, 2
different matching algorithms are used. The first algorithm
is a distance matching method while the second algorithm is
the proposed angle matching method. These 2 algorithms
are further discussed below.
4.1 Distance Matching Method
A common method used to determine a match between
contours is to calculate the distance difference between
them. This is because similar face would have similar
contours while different people would have different face.
Therefore, a mean distance is calculated to determine the
face differences using the equation shown in Equation (6)
[14].
N methods to complement each other, a combination of the
1
µ= ∑d i
N i =1
(6)
where µ is the mean distance, d is the contour distance and
N is the number of distances used.
Database faces that have smaller mean distance with the
probe face have a higher possibility to be a match. This is
because if both contours have similar shape, the distance at
every part of the contour should be small, hence a small
mean distance is obtained. However, if the faces are not
similar, the face contours would be different, causing the
mean distance to be larger.
4.2 Proposed Angle Matching Method
The face contours extracted for this paper have a difference
of either 5 or 10 levels between them since it is not practical
to obtain the face contours for every level of the face. This is
(IJCNS) International Journal of Computer and Network Security,
Vol. 1, No. 2, November 2009
also to help reduce the amount of data points used for
recognition purposes. However, it is believed that the
relationship between levels can help in the recognition
process. Hence, it is proposed that the angle between two
different levels be calculated to help determine a face match.
This method consist of finding the angle of two subsequent
level of the probe and each database image, and then
calculate the angle difference between both the probe and
database image. The angle is calculated using Equation (7).
L
θ = arctan( )
D
(7)
where θ is the angle between 2 levels, L is the height
difference between 2 levels and D is the horizontal distance
between the data points of the 2 different levels as shown in
Figure 3.
Similar levels need to be compared for each probe and
database face, and similar faces should have similar angles
compared to different faces. Hence, similar faces will have
smaller angle difference compared to different faces.
Figure 3. Angle calculation between 2 different levels
5. Proposed Combination Rule
Although it is proposed either distance or angle is used on
either the horizontal or vertical contour for recognition
purposes, it is also decided that a combination of the results
be used to further improve the recognition rate. This is
because sometimes certain method might work better for one
face compared to another while for a different face, the
reverse might happen. Therefore, to use the different
results should be used. However, to combine the values
obtained from the distance and angle method would not be
practical since both methods calculate different things.
Hence, a combination rule is proposed in this paper. First,
values of all the database faces are sorted and converted to a
normalized score. If there are 80 faces in the database, then
the score will span from 1 to 80. Next, the score for 2
different methods are compared and the new score for that
database face would be the minimum score of both methods.
This is because it is more difficult to accidentally obtain a
close match compared to obtaining a mismatch, which can
easily occur due to problems like misalignment. Therefore,
the minimum score is chosen in the combination rule.
However, this may cause some database face to have the
same score. Therefore, the next step is to set up a rule to
solve this problem.
 (IJCNS) International Journal of Computer and Network Security, 113
Vol. 1, No. 2, November 2009

The rule proposed states that if there are similar data points used to represent the face. The combinations
combination score between 2 database faces, then the investigated includes combining 2 methods for a type of
original score from the 2 methods combined will be contour and combining 2 contour types for a single method.
examined and the database face that has the smaller score
difference, and this difference is more than or equals to 10, 7. Results and Discussions
will have its combination score increased by 1 while the
In this paper, the simulation was performed on a subset of
database face with the bigger score difference will still have
the UND 3D face database [15][16].It was determined that
the original combination score. However, if the database
the database set created would consists of 3 faces per person.
face with the smaller score difference has a difference of less
Therefore, a person chosen as a probe should have 4
than 10, then the combination score of this database face
different images in the UND database. Hence, the subset
will remain the same while the database with the bigger
chosen consists of 61 probe people and 80 database people,
score difference will have a new combination score which is
each having 3 face images, making it a total of 240 database
increased by 1 from the original combination score. This is
images.
because if both methods give almost similar scores, then the
Firstly, the face contours, either vertical or horizontal
combination score of the database face is correct and the
depending of which method is being investigated, were
score for the other database face is changed. However, if the
extracted for each probe and training face. Then, the
2 methods produce big difference in score for both database
contour information for each face was selected and sorted
images, then the combination score for the bigger difference
out into a matrix. This data selection step was performed to
would be assumed to be correct. This is because the method
ensure that each face have a matrix of equivalent size which
that produced the higher score does not work for this
contains corresponding x values at similar y values location.
particular database face, hence following the score for the
Next, the horizontal distance or angle at each y value in the
other method would be correct.
matrix was calculated between each probe and the database
Since one of the database face has a combination score
training set. The average distances or angle differences were
increased by 1, hence the rest of the faces in the database
then calculated to determine which face in the database is
will have a combination score increase by 1 to ensure that
most similar to the probe image. Since there are 3 images in
the sorting sequence of all the database faces are still
the database set per person, hence only the lowest average
similar. Finally, once all of the combination scores are
distance value or the smallest angle difference value would
determined to have no repetition, the scores are re-
be considered for each database person. The Rank 1
sequenced again to ensure that the combination score spans
recognition rate results obtained are shown in Table 2.
from 1 to 80 again since there might have been some skips
due to the addition of 1 in the earlier step.
Table 2: Rank 1 recognition rate using 4 different methods
Rank 1
6. Investigated Methods Recognition Rate
In this paper, 8 different methods are investigated to Horizontal Distance Method 70%
determine which contour type, which method as well as Vertical Distance Method 59%
which combination is able to produce the best results for Horizontal Angle Method 77%
face matching. These methods are summarized in Table 1. Vertical Angle Method 75%

Table 1: Investigated Methods

From Table 2, it is observed that the horizontal contours
Methods Horizontal Vertical Distance Angle produces better recognition rates compared to vertical
Contour Contour Method Method contours. Therefore, this indicates that the horizontal
1 √ √ contour shapes are more unique and able to be differentiated
2 √ √ from one another better compared to vertical shapes.
3 √ √ However, using the angle method, it is observed that
4 √ √ horizontal and vertical contours produces almost similar
5 √ √ √ results, indicating this method is suitable for both types of
6 √ √ √ contours. Besides that, it is also observed that the angle
7 √ √ √ method produces better recognition rates when compared to
8 √ √ √ the distance method. Therefore, this shows that the angle is
able to differentiate faces better.
In this paper, the horizontal face contours are extracted From the breakdown of the results obtained, it is observed
out from each face starting at 50 levels above the nose tip that some methods work better for some faces while other
and ending at 50 levels below the nose tip. There is a 10 methods work better for some other faces. Hence, a
combination rule was proposed, as explained in Section 5,
levels interval between each level. For the vertical contours,
and the results obtained are shown in Table 3.
5 levels, starting from 20 levels below the nose tip and
ending at 40 levels below the nose tip, were used. For this
type of contour, there was an interval of 5 levels between
each level. The skip in levels is to help reduce the amount of
114
Table 3: Rank 1 recognition rate using the proposed
combination rule
Rank 1
Recognition Rate
Horizontal + Vertical Distance Method 70%
Horizontal + Vertical Angle Method 88%
Horizontal Distance + Angle Method 77%
Vertical Distance + Angle Method 69%
By comparing Table 2 and Table 3, it is observed that
recognition rates improved when using a combination of
horizontal and vertical contours for both methods. However,
combining the 2 different methods on the same type of
contour does not seem to give much improvement.
Therefore, this proves that vertical and horizontal contours
are able to complement each other to obtain better
recognition rates.
From the simulations performed, it is observed that the
angle method surpasses the distance method and that the use
of both horizontal and vertical contour gives better
recognition rates. Therefore, in this paper, the best
recognition rate was obtained by combining the recognition
rates obtained from the horizontal and vertical contours
using the angle method. At 88% for Rank 1, this recognition
rate is very high considering no training or complex
methods were used. Only simple distance and angle
measures were used to match the faces together.
8. Conclusion
In this paper, the use of horizontal and vertical face contours
for face recognition was investigated. Matching was
performed using either a distance method or a proposed
angle method. Besides that, a proposed combination rule
was used to combine the results obtained from 2 different
methods to produce higher recognition rates. Simulation
results show that horizontal contours are able to produce
better recognition rates compared to vertical contours.
Besides that, the proposed angle method is able to produce
higher recognition rates compared to the distance method.
Results also show that the proposed combination rule is able
to help improve the recognition rates. By combining the
vertical and horizontal contours, better recognition rates are
achieved since it was observed that using the vertical
contour works for some faces and fail for other faces while
the opposite happens when the horizontal contour was used
instead. Hence, the best recognition rate was obtained by
combining the results obtained from the angle method on
the horizontal contour with the results from the angle
method on the vertical contour. This also proves that good
recognition rates can be obtained without the use of complex
methods.
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Authors Profile

Wei Jen Chew received her Bachelor of

Engineering degree (with honours) in the field
of Electrical and Computer Systems and
Masters of Electrical and Computer Systems
Engineering from Monash University in 2005
and 2007 respectively. She is currently a
Research Assistant and PhD student at The
University of Nottingham, Malaysia Campus.

Kah Phooi Seng received her PhD and

Bachelor degree (first class honours) from
University of Tasmania, Australia in 2001 and
1997 respectively. Currently, she is a member
of the School of Electrical & Electronic
Engineering at The University of Nottingham
Malaysia Campus. Her research interests are in
the fields of intelligent visual processing,
biometrics and multi-biometrics, artificial intelligence and signal
processing.

Li-Minn Ang completed his Bachelor of

Engineering and Ph.D at Edith Cowan
University in Perth, Australia in 1996 and
2001 respectively. He then taught at
Monash University before joining The
University of Nottingham Malaysia
Campus in 2004. His research interests
are in the fields of signal, image, vision processing and
reconfigurable computing.