Deformable pedal curves with application to face contour extraction

Pedal curves are the loci of the feet of perpendiculars to the tangents of a fixed curve to a fixed point called the pedal point. By varying the location of the pedal point, deformable pedal curves have an important feature of incorporating a global parameterized shape into the curve evolution framework. In this paper, a hybrid geometric active model based on deformable pedal curves for face contour extraction is presented. Taking advantage of the deformable pedal curves, the proposed model can allow for representation of global and local shape characteristic of human face. Moreover, by implementing the model in a level set framework, automatic topological changes can be achieved naturally. Experimental results show the validity of our approach.