Multidimensional Scaling for Matching Low-Resolution Face Images

Face recognition performance degrades considerably when the input images are of Low Resolution (LR), as is often the case for images taken by surveillance cameras or from a large distance. In this paper, we propose a novel approach for matching low-resolution probe images with higher resolution gallery images, which are often available during enrollment, using Multidimensional Scaling (MDS). The ideal scenario is when both the probe and gallery images are of high enough resolution to discriminate across different subjects. The proposed method simultaneously embeds the low-resolution probe images and the high-resolution gallery images in a common space such that the distance between them in the transformed space approximates the distance had both the images been of high resolution. The two mappings are learned simultaneously from high-resolution training images using an iterative majorization algorithm. Extensive evaluation of the proposed approach on the Multi-PIE data set with probe image resolution as low as 8 × 6 pixels illustrates the usefulness of the method. We show that the proposed approach improves the matching performance significantly as compared to performing matching in the low-resolution domain or using super-resolution techniques to obtain a higher resolution test image prior to recognition. Experiments on low-resolution surveillance images from the Surveillance Cameras Face Database further highlight the effectiveness of the approach.