3D-2D image registration for craniofacial superimposition in forensic medicine using covariance matrix adaptation evolution strategy

Photographic supra-projection is a forensic process that aims to identify a missing person from a photograph and a skull found. One of the crucial tasks throughout all this process is the craniofacial superimposition which is usually carried out manually by forensic anthropologists; thus being very time consuming and presenting several difficulties when trying to find a good fit between the 3D model of the skull and the 2D photo of the face. In this contribution we tackle craniofacial superimposition as a 3D-2D image registration problem by means of a covariance matrix adapted evolutionary strategy. Results on different superimposition problems of real-world identification cases solved by the Physical Anthropology lab at the University of Granada (Spain) are considered to test our proposal.