Multi-pose Face Recognition for Person Retrieval in Camera Networks

In this paper, we study the use of facial appearancefeatures for the re-identification of persons using distributedcamera networks in a realistic surveillance scenario.In contrast to features commonly used for person reidentification,such as whole body appearance, facial featuresoffer the advantage of remaining stable over muchlarger intervals of time. The challenge in using faces forsuch applications, apart from low captured face resolutions,is that their appearance across camera sightings is largelyinfluenced by lighting and viewing pose. Here, a numberof techniques to address these problems are presented andevaluated on a database of surveillance-type recordings. Asystem for online capture and interactive retrieval is presentedthat allows to search for sightings of particular personsin the video database. Evaluation results are presentedon surveillance data recorded with four cameras over severaldays. A mean average precision of 0.60 was achievedfor inter-camera retrieval using just a single track as queryset, and up to 0.86 after relevance feedback by an operator.