Colored and anchored Active Shape Models for tracking and form description of the facial features under image-specific disturbances

In this work a robust method is introduced, which addresses the problem of automatic extraction and tracking of facial features in color image sequences. The automatic extraction of facial features is done in two steps. The first step consists of a rough localization of the features while in the second step the facial features are exactly segmented using Active Shape Models (ASM). In contrast to simple ASM another approach is pursued in this work, which contains two modifications of the ASM, which lead to more robustness. The facial feature tracking in video sequences is realized by correspondence determination of individual specific support points which are used to anchor the feature models during movement. This leads to more stability and reliability for tracking and form description of the facial features under image-specific disturbances.