About 3D Faces

Identity recognition using 3D scans of the face has been recently proposed as an alternative or complementary solution to conventional 2D face recognition approaches based on still images or videos. In fact, face representations based on 3D data are expected to be much more robust to pose changes and illumination variations than 2D images, thus allowing accurate face recognition also in real-world applications with unconstrained acquisition. Based on these premises, in this Chapter we will first introduce the general and main methodologies for 3D face data acquisition and preprocessing, also presenting some 3D benchmark databases and performance indicators used for evaluation and comparison. Then, we will discuss some of the results recently achieved on this subject, also presenting current trends and challenges of the research.