Recognizing faces from a new viewpoint

A new technique is described for recognizing faces from new viewpoints. From a single 2D image of a face synthetic images from new viewpoints are generated and compared to stored views. A novel 2D image of a face can be computed without knowledge about the 3D structure of the head. The technique draws on prior knowledge of faces based on example images of other faces seen in different poses and on a single generic 3D model of a human head. The example images are used to learn a pose-invariant shape and texture description of a new face. The 3D model is used to solve the correspondence problem between images showing faces in different poses. The performance of the technique is tested on a data set of 200 faces of known orientation for rotations up to 90°