Proceedings of International Conference on Computing Sciences

WILKES100 ICCS 2013

ISBN: 978-93-5107-172-3
A review on various popular feature extraction and classification
methods and their effectiveness in face recognition technology
Abhishek Kumar Srivastava
1*
and Navroop Kaur Ghoman
2

1
Assistant Professor,Department of Electronics and Communication Engineering, Lovely Professional University, PB, India
2
Research Scholar, Department of Electronics and Communication Engineering, Lovely Professional University, PB, India
Abstract
Face Recognition has recently experienced significant attention, particularly during the past several years. This paper
furnishes an up-to-date review of the existing literature of human face recognition research. We firstly introduce a summary
of face recognition, its applications and approaches. An overview of some of the well-known feature extraction techniques,
feature classification techniques and databases therein are examined. Then, a comparative study of the most recently used face
recognition techniques are presented. Finally, we give a summary of the various research results done by different researchers
and reason out on the most promising technique for face recognition till date.
2013 Elsevier Science. All rights reserved.
Keywords: SVM; RF; Gabor Wavelet; Curvelet; PCA; Neural Network
1. Introduction
Face recognition technology is the fastest biometric technology. It exploits with the most evident individual
identifierthe human face. Instead of necessitating people to localize their hand on a reader or just position their
eye in front of a scanner, face recognition systems unnoticeable take pictures of humans face as they enter a
defined area. In many situations the people are entirely incognizant of this process.
Recognition is a relationship between an ocular input and internal representation of an object. Face recognition
is a type of object recognition problem; it is only that it is a particular object. A conventional method of
classifying human faces has been first proposed by Franchis Galton [1].
Research concern in face recognition has developed importantly in recent years as a result of the following
conceptions: -The enhancement in emphasis on civilian/commercial research projects; the increasing demand for
surveillance associated applications; the availability of real time hardware, etc. Over last 15 years incremental
activities have been seen in tackling problems such as recognizing faces in various environments.
2. How Does Face Recognition Technology Works?
A face recognition system can distinguish faces shown in images and video automatically. The overall
procedure of face recognition system with some practical applications is depicted in Figure1. Feature detection or
face detection is the process in which the system should find out whether there is a face in input image or video.
The feature detection (face detection) and feature extraction are often executed simultaneously. Faces shown
in digital images or video are verified automatically by a face recognition system. It can execute in either or both
of two modes: (i) Face verification (authentication), (ii) Face identification (recognition). Face verification
implies a one-to-one match pair that compares an inquiry face image with a template face image in the database
*
Corresponding author: Abhishek Kumar Srivastava .
393 Elsevier Publications, 2013
Abhishek Kumar Srivastava nad Navroop Kaur Ghoman
to ascertain the identity of the inquiry face image. Face identification implies a one-to-many match pairs that
compares an inquiry face image with all the template images in the database to ascertain the identity of the
inquiry face image.
Fig.1. Process of Face Recognition System [22]
3. Approaches
In There are some approaches of face recognition for still digital images or video can be sorted into three main
category listed in [3]:-
3.1. Holistic approach
In this approach, the input image or video to face detection system is the complete face region. Support
Vector Machines (SVM), Independent Component Analysis (ICA), Principal Component Analysis (PCA),
Fisherfaces, Nearest Feature Lines (NFL) are few examples of holistic methods.
3.2. Fature based approach
In this feature based approaches, the input data for structural classifier is the locations of local feature of face
such as mouth, nose and eyes. Hidden Markov Model, Convolution Neural Network (CNN) methods are
examples of this approach.
3.3. Hybrid approach
The thought of the hybrid approach is from how human vision system comprehends both local feature and
complete face region. Hybrid approach should be used by a machine recognition system
4. Some feature extraction techniques
Eigenface is one of the most soundly inquired approaches to face recognition technology. It is also known as
Karhumen Loeve expansion, Principal Component, Eigenvector and Eigenfaces. LDA (Linear Discriminate
Analysis) attempts to discriminate between the different categories of data. LDA works better than PCA when the
394 Elsevier Publications, 2013
A review on various popular feature extraction and classification methods and their effectiveness in face recognition technology
training images are well representative of the images in the system. ICA is slightly alike to PCA. The restrictions
of PCA are: - PCA is scale variant; PCA only consider orthogonal transformations (rotations) of the original
variables. Kernel PCA (KPCA) is a version of PCA that provides non-linear mappings. PCA is just revealing
them according to their variations.
In 1946 the first time frequency Wavelets (Gabor Wavelets) was presented by Dennis Gabor [2]. Gabor
Wavelets extract features from original face images. In order to maximize the resolution for joint time and
frequency analysis of signals, the Gabor function [3] was presented. The Gabor Wavelet representation captures
the local structure indicates to spatial frequency orientation selectivity and spatial localization.
To overcome the disadvantage of Wavelets in higher dimensions and to better capture the curve singularities
details and hyper planes singularities details of high dimensional signals, Candes and Donoho [22] presented
Curvelet transform. The Curvelet transform interprets edges better than Wavelets, and is well suitable for multi-
scale edge enhancement [4]. The Curvelet transform is combination of the two dimensional Wavelet transform
and Ridgelet transform. The original image is disintegrate into a two dimension Wavelet, and each sub band is
separated into n*n blocks. The Ridgelet transform is then implemented to each block.
5. Some feature classification techniques
Neural Network (NN) based on the traditional empirical risk minimization (ERM) principle [5]. The
implementation of Neural Networks are very simple but also handling of time series data in Neural Networks is a
very complicated task; The VC dimension (measure of ability of statistical classification algorithm) of Neural
Networks is ill-defined. The universal approximation theorem for Neural Networks demonstrate that every
continuous function that represents intervals of real numbers to some output interval of real numbers can be
approximated randomly closely by a Multi-Layer Perceptron (MLP) with only one hidden layer. By using MLP
classification criterion for face recognition, SVM is a better approach than the Eigenface approach [12].
Support Vector Machines (SVMs) has been recently presented by Vapnik and his colleagues [6] as a very
efficient algorithm for general purpose pattern classification. The basic principle of SVM is Structural Risk
Minimization (SRM) principle. The SRM principle is based on the concept that minimizing an upper bound on
the generalization error rather than minimizing the training error is expected to execute better. SVM has
demonstrated to be superior to many traditional techniques such as Neural Network [7], PCA.
The main features of SVMs are under mentioned in [6]: - SVMs minimize an upper bound on the
generalization error rather minimizing mean square error; SVMs operate on high-dimensional feature spaces; The
prevision is based hyper planes in these feature spaces; By soft margins can be handled the outliers in the training
data; Fast and scalable learning algorithm.
A Random Forest (RF) is also used for classification of faces. A RF is ensemble learning algorithm. Ensemble
methods are those learning algorithms that construct a set of many individual classifiers known as weak learner to
create a unique classification system. RF overcomes the disadvantages of SVM i.e. computation time; RF holds
the accuracy when a large proportion of data is lacking; Training time and testing time of SVM depends on
number of samples while RF depends on tree number etc. [8].
We can make two significant observations: - (i) might be no feature which is simultaneously not variant to all
the variations that a human face image may show, (ii) provide more testing images , almost any technique will do
better. These observations are reasons that why face recognition is not widely used in real-world applications. It
is usual to expect the ability to recognize faces under different fluctuations.
6. Some popular databases
As YALE [9]: - This database comprises 165 images of 15 peoples faces. For each individual subject, there
are images comprises fluctuations in illumination variations include right-light, left-light and centre-light;
spectacle variations with-specs and without-specs and facial aspect include normal, happy, sad, surprised, sleepy
and blink.
Limitations: - (i) Number of people is less; (ii) No pose angle fluctuations (iii) Environmental factors are not
depicted.
395 Elsevier Publications, 2013
Abhishek Kumar Srivastava nad Navroop Kaur Ghoman
AR [9]: - This database comprises 4000 images of 126 peoples faces. There are no confinements on clothing,
spectacles, make-up, or hair style. Controlled variations include facial aspect (normal, smile, anger etc.),
illumination fluctuations and partial facial occlusions.
Limitations: - Sometimes light sources creates obnoxious glare in the eyeglasses of some individual.
AT&T (formerly ORL) [9]: - This database comprises 400 images of 40 peoples faces. For some
individuals, the images were capture with time-gaps, changing the lighting, facial aspect (open eyes, closed eyes,
smiling face, not smiling face) and spectacles details (with specs, without specs). All the images of individuals
were captured against dark homogenous background in an vertical, frontal posture.
Limitations: - (i) Number of people is less; (ii) Illumination situations are not consistent from image to image;
(iii) Images are not annotated for different facial expressions, pose angle fluctuations ( head rotation), or lighting
situations.
FERET [9]: - This database comprises face images of 1000 individuals. It includes many images of the
individual captured at different times. The robustness of face recognition system algorithms over time can be
determined with this significant feature of the database.
Limitations: - (i) No pose angle fluctuations; (ii) No selective information about the lighting used.
7. Comparison of Experimental Results
7.1. Comparison of Curvelet, Gabor Filter, Wavelet
In [9], ORL database is former name of AT&T and so they are same. In [4], experimental results demonstrate
that 2D-PCA +Curvelet have better recognition accuracy than 2D-PCA+Gabor filter on the ORL database and
experimentally derive conclusion that Curvelet outperforms to Gabor Filter.
In [10], it is shown that KPCA (Kernel Principal Component Analysis) figures out the faults in which PCA
cannot extract the nonlinear features of facial images. The second generation Curvelet +KPCA and Wavelet +
KPCA with recognition accuracy 97% and 91% respectively demonstrate that Curvelet outdoes the Wavelet.
PCA and KPCA extracted the linear features and non-linear features respectively. KPCA and 2DCA is based
on kernel trick and matrix-based representation respectively. The basic idea of kernel trick is to perform the linear
analysis by nonlinearly transforming the original input space into a higher or even infinite dimensional feature
space and expect that the nonlinear problems in original space can be converted into a linear one in the
transformed space [21].
On the other hand, 2DPCA is to represent images as matrices without image-to-vector transformation and
expect to utilize the underlying spatial structure information for efficient feature extraction and recognition.
Although KPCA and 2DPCA have been successfully used for face and object recognition with multiple images
per class, their execution rating on a single image per class remains unknown [21].
The 2DPCA can be used for image feature extraction. The 2DPCA is based on 2D matrices rather than 1D
vector. It has two important advantages over 1DPCA. First, it is easier to evaluate the covariance matrix. Second,
less time is required to compute [4].
In [11], least square SVM (LS-SVM) is used with an advantage of simpler algorithm, faster operation speed
etc. Curvelet transform is employed to decompose the image and extract Curvelet coefficients to reduce the
dimensionality of facial image fed to LS-SVM. The recognition accuracy rate is 96% for Curvelet +SVM and
computation speed is more.
In [13], Curvelet transform attempts to overcome the defects of Wavelets (Wavelets have blunt directional
representations and not anisotropic) for better feature extraction. Face recognition using Curvelet and SVM at
different resolution shows the different recognition accuracy on the ORL database.
Therefore, from above discourse of experimental results, Curvelet and Gabor Wavelet are two better
parameters for feature extraction of facial images.
396 Elsevier Publications, 2013
A review on various popular feature extraction and classification methods and their effectiveness in face recognition technology
7.2. Comparison of Curvelet and Gabor, Wavelet
Figure3. ROC Curve of 3 algorithms on ORL Database [22]
The ROC works with false acceptance rate (FAR) and false rejection rate (FRR) [22]. In [22], the comparison
of Gabor Wavelet and Curvelet is demonstrated for face recognition irrelevant to expression and illumination
changes. The facial facts are: - (i) Facial expressions and small occlusions affect the intensity multiplex locally,
so only high-frequency spectrum is affected; (ii) most illumination fluctuations and variations in pose or scale of
a face affect the intensity multiply globally; (iii) Only a change in face will affect all frequency components. In
[22], it is conclude that the properties of coarse coefficients of Wavelet and Curvelet are good for expression
variations. For both expression and illumination changes, Curvelet is better choice to Wavelet and Gabor
Wavelet.
7.3 Various Feature Extraction Transform Classified Using SYM
Fig. 4. Various Feature Extraction Transform Classified using SVM
397 Elsevier Publications, 2013
Abhishek Kumar Srivastava nad Navroop Kaur Ghoman
I SVM, ICA [14] II SVM, PCA [14] III PCA, LSVM [15] IV PCA, PSVM [15]
V PCA, RBF-SVM [15] VIII Curvelet, SVM [13] VI SVM, NN Arbitrator [16] VII Gabor
Wavelet, L-SVM [12]
ICA (Independent Component Analysis) is a feature extraction technique that can be considered as
generalization of PCA. In [14], experimental results were obtained on two unlike databases that showed the
almost similar accuracy on YALE database and AR database or ICA have better accuracy than PCA on AR
database. The training time ICA is much greater than PCA, so results suggest that PCA + SVM is better
combination than ICA + SVM for facial image recognition [19].
In [15], experimental evidences shows that Polynomial-SVM and Radial Basis Function-SVM
performs better face classification than linear SVM on ORL database and leads to enhancement in efficiency
and robustness.
In [16], local correlation kernel is used which is the modified form of polynomial kernel. Local
correlation kernel is used to take account of anterior knowledge about facial structures and used as an alternative
feature extractor. In this experiment, NN (Neural Network) is used as an arbitrator and experimental evidences
attained 97.9% recognition accuracy. In [12], the SVM classification approach is based on ECOC (Error
Correcting Output Codes) algorithm to resolve face recognition.
PCA and NN is better than Gabor Wavelet by comparing the observational results of PCA+LSVM
[15], NN+SVM [16] and Gabor Wavelet+SVM [12] as observed on ORL database [figure3].
In [13], Curvelet transform attempts to overcome the defects of Wavelets (Wavelets have blunt
directional representations and not anisotropic) for better feature extraction. Face recognition using Curvelet and
SVM at different resolution shows the different recognition accuracy for databases AT&T (with minimal
variations), J AFFE (with extreme variations) and EssexFaces96 (with large variations in background).
Curvelet is better than PCA and NN if we compared the results of PCA+L-SVM [15], NN+SVM [16]
and Curvelet +SVM [13] as observed on ORL database [figure4]. Overall Curvelet performs better feature
extraction results than PCA (Principal Component Analysis).
From discourse of figure2 and figure3 it was demonstrate that Curvelet is better feature extraction
technique comparative to Gabor Wavelet. Now experimental evidences shows in figure4 that combination
of Curvelet + SVM give better face recognition accuracy comparative to others.
7.4 Comparison of RF with SVM
Table1. Recognition rate according number of trees of Random Forest [8]
Number of trees 20 40 60 80 100
Recognition Rate (%)
62.5 75.1 78.8 95.1 95.1
Table2. Recognition rate and computation time of various methods [8]
Method Used Recognition Rate
(%)
Time computation
(sec)
HOG+RF 95.1 5.376
HOG+SVM 94.4 10.368
GABOR+SVM 94.5 47.289
GABOR+RF 95.7 39.345
398 Elsevier Publications, 2013
A review on various popular feature extraction and classification methods and their effectiveness in face recognition technology
Fig. 5. Comparison of RF with SVM
In [8], observational results of RF and SVM are compared using two feature extraction techniques HOG
(Histogram of Oriented Gradients) and Gabor .HOG feature divides the image into many cells, in each of them a
histogram counts the occurrences of pixels orientations given by their gradients. The final HOG descriptor is then
built with combination of these histograms [8]. Also discuss the recognition rate of RF corresponding to number
of trees. In the Random Forest classifier, need only to specify the number of trees to specify. This number affects
the accuracy of results given by the system when predicting a new face. Table 2 shows that increasing the number
of trees n provides best recognition rate. However when reaching certain number of trees, which depends
essentially on the dimension of the dataset and correspond to 80 in our case, the recognition rate will no longer
increases[8].
In [18], experimental evidence shows that recognition accuracy rate on two different databases IIITK
and FERET for the combination of Gabor Wavelet +RF 99.86% and 98.07% respectively. In [18], RF is used to
resolve the computation time of Gabor feature.
Experimental results demonstrate that Random Forest outdoes to SVM, Neural Network [8, 17, 18, and
20]. The one weakness of Random Forest (RF) is that large training set per subject is required for classification.
In [17], experimentally concluded that lowest classification error (0.0%) is produced by RF compare to SVM
with 255 numbers of trees and 9 numbers of variables at each split for 400 images.
Similarly experimental results demonstrated that Curvelet is better solution than Gabor Wavelets and
Wavelets [22] and also outperforms PCA, ICA and NN as shown in figure 3.
Eventually, we derived conclusion from the observational results that Curvelet is better feature extraction
technique and RF is better feature classifier comparative to others existing techniques.
8. Conclusion
This paper compares the accuracy rate of feature extraction techniques and feature classification
techniques. Gabor Wavelet has several advantages such as invariance to homogenous illumination changes, small
changes in head pose and robustness against facial hair, glasses. Review of research results demonstrated in
figure2 and figure3 shows that Curvelet outdoes to Wavelet and Gabor Wavelet.
This paper also compares correct recognition results of face images using different types of Wavelet
features and different kernel functions. This paper concludes the use of kernel trick to SVM leads to give more
accurate classification results shows in figure4.
In [15], [7] it is demonstrate that SVM is surpasses to MLP and Neural Network. Furthermore
Random Forest (RF) outdoes to SVM and Neural Network. The comparison of data-based results of RF and SVM
shows in figure5. RF overcomes the disadvantages of SVM are listed in [8], [18]: - computation time; RF holds
399 Elsevier Publications, 2013
Abhishek Kumar Srivastava nad Navroop Kaur Ghoman
the accuracy when a large proportion of data is lacking; Training time and testing time of SVM depends on
number of samples while RF depends on tree number etc. [8]. The one weakness of RF is that large training set
per subject is required for classification [18].
Fig. 6. Consolidate Observational Results
After discourse of observational results of various feature extraction techniques and feature classifier. It is
demonstrated that among various feature extraction techniques Curvelet is better choice than Wavelet and Gabor
Wavelet [figure2, figure3] and among various feature classifier RF is best option than SVM, NN and MLP
[figure5].
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Index

S
Semantic web service, 387
discovery, 388
observation and discussion, 391
service composition, 390
service selection, 389390