Multi-sample 3D face registration based on TPS transformation and linear combination model

To conquer the point-to-point registration of 3D face, we present an automatic registration method for multi-sample 3D face based on the thin-plate spline(TPS) transformation and the linear combination model. In the method, the data registration is divided into two stages. In the first stage, each sample face will be registered with the selected reference face by the TPS based non-rigid registration method to obtain the primary data registration; in the second stage, the combination model is set up based on the first stage primarily registered multi-sample data. For each sample face, matched with the combination model a similar reference face will be generated to facilitate the accurate data registration by TPS registration. To eliminate the outliers of different face samples, countermeasures are adopted in both stages of the data registration. The experiments on the BJUT-3D face database show that our method is effective for the registration of 3D face and robust to the outliers of face data.