3D ear reconstruction based on the morphable model

Existing work of 3D morphable models mainly focuses on 3D face recognition and reconstruction but ignores the ear regions which are usually captured together with the face images. However, ears are almost rigid structures, which are relatively stable to age growth and resist the facial expression variations, making themselves an effective supplement of faces for personal identification. Hence, we explore a novel framework for 3D ear reconstruction based on the 3D morphable model. This is the original work to reconstruct pure 3D ears using the 3D morphable model. Novel methods for ear pit detection and shape alignment are proposed. Model registration is achieved among 3D ear samples. Based on the proposed framework, the 3D ear model is reconstructed. Our work provides advantageous expansion for existing 3D morphable model research. Experimental results and comparison with other 3D ear reconstruction methods have verified the validity of our proposed method.