3D face recognition for biometric applications

Face recognition (FR) is the preferred mode of identity recognition by humans: It is natural, robust and unintrusive. However, automatic FR techniques have failed to match up to expectations: Variations in pose, illumination and expression limit the performance of 2D FR techniques. In recent years, 3D FR has shown promise to overcome these challanges. With the availability of cheaper acquisition methods, 3D face recognition can be a way out of these problems, both as a stand-alone method, or as a supplement to 2D face recognition. We review the relevant work on 3D face recognition here, and discuss merits of different representations and recognition algorithms.