An Indoor and Outdoor, Multimodal, Multispectral and Multi-Illuminant Database for Face Recognition

In this effort, we describe a face database obtained by using an involved acquisition system for the collection of multimodal and multispectral image data under various illumination conditions. The database of facial images may aid in exploring new avenues in face recognition, especially when involving multi-band visible and thermal information. The database has applications in experimentation with human identification, authentication, and face modeling. We describe the abilities of the acquisition system wherein the imaging sensors, system considerations and registration are discussed. For each data record in the database, we have twenty five images spanning the visible spectrum, one visible RGB/monochromatic image, one thermal image and the spectral distribution of the illumination of the scene. The complete dataset has so far 2624 face images and the corresponding illumination information for each data record. Moreover, we present a multispectral data fusion approach for illumination adjustment. The database will be made public to the research community for perusal towards illumination invariant face related research.