Facial similarity across age, disguise, illumination and pose

Illumination, pose variations, disguises, aging effects and expression variations are some of the key factors that affect the performance of face recognition systems. Face recognition systems have always been studied from a recognition perspective. Our emphasis is on deriving a measure of similarity between faces. The similarity measure provides insights into the role each of the above mentioned variations play in affecting the performance of face recognition systems. In the process of computing the similarity measure between faces, we suggest a framework to compensate for pose variations and introduce the notion of 'half-faces' to circumvent the problem of non-uniform illumination. We used the similarity measure to retrieve similar faces from a database containing multiple images of individuals. Moreover, we devised experiments to study the effect age plays in affecting facial similarity. In conclusion, the similarity measure helps in studying the significance facial features play in affecting the performance of face recognition systems.