Toward a Robust System to Monitor Head Motions during PET Based on Facial Landmark Detection: A New Approach

A new approach for the detection of head motions during PET scanning is presented. The proposed system includes 4 modules, which are: input module, face segmentation, facial landmark detection, and head movement estimation. The developed system is tested on pictures monitoring a subject´s head while simulating PET scanning (n=12) and face images of subjects with different skin colours (n=31). Experimental results show that the centres of chosen facial landmarks (eye corners and middle point of nose basement) can be detected with high precision (1plusmn0.64 pixels). Processing of 2D images with known moving parameters demonstrates that the parameter movement in terms of rotation and translation along X, Y, and Z directions can be obtained very accurately via the developed methods.