ISBN 978-952-5726-02-2 (Print), 978-952-5726-03-9 (CD-ROM) Proceedings of the 2009 International Symposium on Information Processing (ISIP09) Huangshan, P. R.

China, August 21-23, 2009, pp. 140-143

Face Recognition Based on Curvelet Transform and LS-SVM

Jianhong Xie
School of Electronics, Jiangxi University of Finance and Economics, Nanchang, China jhxie2006@126.com reduction tools on some kind of transformation domain. Nowadays, multiresolution analysis is often performed as a preprocessing step to dimensionality reduction. The most popular multiresolution analysis tool is the wavelet transform. It has enjoyed a wide-spread popularity in the field of face recognition [5]. In wavelet analysis an image is usually decomposed at different scales or resolutions using a wavelet basis vector. Thereafter, the component which corresponds to the maximum variance is selected for further operation. This way, the image can be represented by a small number of wavelet coefficients, and the effect of variable facial appearances (expression variation, illumination variation, facial detail variation, etc.) on the classification systems can also be lessened in turn. Over the past two decades, following the success of wavelet, a series of new multiresolution analysis tools like, ridgelet [6], contourlet [7], etc. were developed. Curvelet transform [8], developed by Candes and Donoho is a recent addition to this list. Compared to wavelet, curvelet has improved directional elements and better ability to represent edges and other singularities along curves. And curvelet transform yields a more sparse representation of the image than wavelet and ridgelet transform. So far, successful applications of curvelet have been found mostly in the fields of image processing [9], but not much work has been done to explore the potential of curvelet transform to solve pattern recognition problems. In the domain of pattern recognition, Support Vector Machine (SVM) is an ideal nonlinear classification tool nowadays. In this paper, a face recognition system based on curvelet transform and Least Square Support Vector Machine (LS-SVM) has been developed, which uses curvelet transform to extract features from facial images first, and then uses LS-SVM to classify facial images based on features. The proposed method has been evaluated by carrying out experiments on the well-known ORL face database. II. CURVELET TRANSFORM In 1999, Candes and Donoho introduced the curvelet transform. Over the past few years, curvelet construction has been redesigned in order to make it simpler to understand and use. Then the second generation curvelet transform [10] introduced in 2006 is not only simpler, but is faster and less redundant compared to its first generation version. Curvelet transform is multiscale and multidirectional. Curvelets exhibit highly anisotropic shape obeying parabolic-scaling relationship. Like
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AbstractAs a latest multiresolution analysis method, curvelet transform has improved directional elements with anisotropy and better ability to represent sparsely edges and other singularities along curves. To reduce the dimensionality of facial image and improve the recognition rate, a face recognition system based on curvelet transform and Least Square Support Vector Machine (LS-SVM) has been developed in this paper, which uses curvelet transform to extract features from facial images first, and then uses LS-SVM to classify facial images based on features. The proposed method has been evaluated by carrying out experiments on the well-known ORL face database. The results show that the correct recognition rate is up to 96%, and the computational speed is faster. Index Terms curvelet transform, LS-SVM, face recognit ion, ORL face database

I. INTRODUCTION As a means of biometric technique, face recognition has been studied diligently for more than 30 years now and has emerged as one of the most successful applications of image analysis. Compared to other biometric techniques requiring cooperative subjects such as fingerprint recognition and iris recognition, face recognition might not have a superior level of accuracy, but working with faces certainly has clear advantages of being natural and passive. Face recognition has drawn increasing attention because of its potential applications in many fields, such as identity authentication, information security, surveillance, human-computer interface, and so on [1]. Various changes in face images such as viewpoint, illumination and facial expressions present a great challenge [2]. Feature extraction is a key step prior to face recognition. Extraction of a representative feature set can greatly enhance the performance of any face recognition system. Direct use of pixel values as features is not possible due to huge dimensionality of the images. To reduce the dimensionality, Principal Component Analysis (PCA) is employed to obtain a lower dimensional representation of the data in standard eigenface. Though PCA provides effective approximation, the method suffers from greater computational load and poor discriminatory power [3]. In order to resolve these limitations of PCA, researchers suggest the use of other dimensionality reduction tools like Independent Component Analysis (ICA), Linear Discriminant Analysis (LDA), Kernel PCA and Kernel LDA [4]. Another way to handle huge dimensionality in face recognition problems is to employ dimensionality
2009 ACADEMY PUBLISHER AP-PROC-CS-09CN002

wavelet and ridgelet transform, the second continuous curvelet transform is also fallen into the category of sparseness theory. And it can be used to represent sparsely signal or function by applying the inner product of basis function and signal or function. Then, the curvelet transform can be expressed by

the other scale 2j. Defines: (1) Uniform rotation angle serial

l = 2 2[ j / 2 ] l , l = 0,1,L, 0 l 2
(2) Shift parameter k = (k1 , k2 ) Z 2 According to the above ideas, the curvelet can be defined as a function of x =(x1, x2) at scale 2j, orientation l , and position xk
( j ,l )

c( j , l , k ) : = f , j ,l , k
where

(1)

j ,l , k denotes curvelet function, and j, l and k

denotes the variable of scale, orientation, and position respectively. In the frequency domain, the Curvelet transform can be implemented with by means of the window function U. Defining a pair of windows W(r) (a radial window) and V(t) (an angular window) as the followings:

by
l

( j ,l , k ( x) = j ( R ( x xk j ,l ) ))

(5)

( where xk j , l ) = Rl1 (k1 2 j , k 2 2 j / 2 ) , and R l is the

j =

W
2

( 2 j r ) = 1,

r (3 / 4,3 / 2)

(2)

rotation in radians. Then the continuous curvelet transform can be defined by

l =

c( j , l , k ) : = f , j ,l , k = 2 f ( x) j ,l , k ( x)dx
R

(6)

(t 1) = 1,

t (1 / 2,1 / 2)

(3)

Based on Plancherel Therory, the following formula can be deduced from the above,

where variables W as a frequency domain variable, and r and as polar coordinates in the frequency domain. For each j j0 , Uj is defined in the Fourier domain by

c( j , l , k ) : =

2[ j / 2 ] U j (r , ) = 2 3 j / 4 w(2 j r )v 2

f ( ) j , l , k ( x)d 2 2 j x ( i , j ) , 1 = f ( )U j ( R l )e k d 2 2

(7)

(4)

where [j/2] denotes the integer part of j/2. A polar wedge represented by Uj , shown in the shadow region of Fig. 1, is supported by W and V, the radial and angular windows. Fig. 1 shows the division of wedges of the Fourier frequency plane. The wedges are the result of partitioning the Fourier plane in radial (concentric circles) and angular divisions. Concentric circles are responsible for decomposition of the image in multiple scales (used for bandpassing the image) and angular divisions corresponding to different angles or orientation. So, to address a particular wedge one needs to define the scale and angle first.

Set the input f[t1,t2] (0t1, t2<n) in the spatial Cartesian, then the discrete form of above continuous curvelet transform can be expressed as the following:

c D ( j, l , k ) : =

0 t1 , t 2 < n

f [t , t ]
1 2

D j ,l , k

[t1 , t2 ]

(8)

The discrete curvelet transform can be implemented by a wrapping algorithm. In this algorithm, four steps are carried out: (1) An application of 2D fast Fourier transform to the image. (2) A formation of a product of Uj for each scale and angle. (3) A wrapping of this product around the origin. (4) An application of a 2D inverse fast Fourier transform, resulting in discrete curvelet coefficients. III. LEAST SQUARE SUPPORT VECTOR MACHINE As a new learning machine, Support Vector Machine based on Statistical Learning Theory has various types. Among these types, Least Square Support Vector Machine (LS-SVM) with the advantages of simpler algorithm, faster operation speed, etc., is widely applied to pattern recognition and nonlinear regression[7]. The classification principle of LS-SVM can be explained as follows: Consider a given training set {( xi , yi ), i = 1,2, , l} with input data xi R n and output label data yi R ,
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Figure 1. Curvelet representation in the frequency domain

Let j ( ) = U j ( ) , and j at the scale j, then the curvelet can be obtained by rotating and shifting j at

and the classifier takes the following form:

y ( x ) = sign [ T ( x ) + b ]

(9)

where () : R n R nh is the mapping to the high dimensional and potentially infinite dimensional feature space. In the primal weight space, the optimization problem becomes:

data can be gotten to classify. The main kernel functions used to LS-SVM have polynomial kernel, RBF kernel, and sigmoid kernel. In this paper, RBF kernel is applied as the following:

K ( x, xi ) = exp( x xi

/ 2 2 )

(16)

IV. EXPERIMENTS AND RESULTS Based on ORL face database, the above curvelet transform combined with LS-SVM is applied to recognize faces. In this method, curvelet transform is used to extract features from facial images first, and then LS-SVM is used to classify facial images based on features. The ORL database contains 400 images of 40 persons (10 images per person). Some images were captured at different times and have different variations including expression (open or closed eyes, smiling or non-smiling) and facial details (glasses or no glasses). The images were taken with a tolerance for some tilting and rotation of the faces up to 20. A part of the samples images are displayed in Fig. 2. In the experiments, the front five samples per person (total 200 images) are used for training LS-SVM, and then the remaining five samples per person (total 200 images) are used for testing LS-SVM. To reduce the dimensionality of facial image fed to LS-SVM, curvelet transform is applied to decompose the image and extract curvelet coefficients as a representative set of facial features at scales 4 (coarse, detail1, detail2, fine). For example, Fig. 3 shows a result of curvelet transform at scales 4 for a facial image. Because five curvelet coefficients (energy, maximum, minimum, mean and variance) are extracted at each scale, each facial image has twenty features to be extracted at scales 4 by curvelet transform. Set these features as the inputs of above LS-SVM, and corresponding person number as the outputs of above LS-SVM. Adopting the method, after training LS-SVM by the front five samples per person (total 200 images), the LS-SVM is applied to recognize the remaining five samples per person (total 200 images). The results show that the correct recognition rate is up to 96%, and the computational speed is faster.

1 1 l min J ( , ) = T + i2 ,b , 2 2 i =1 s.t. yi [ ( xi ) + b] = 1 i , i = 1,2, L , l

T

(10)

where > 0 denotes a real constant used to control the punishment degree for misclassification. Because w becomes infinite dimensional, this primal problem cannot directly be solved. Therefore, let us proceed by constructing the following Lagrangian:
L(, b, ; ) = J (, ) i yi [ T ( xi ) + b] 1 + i
i =1 l

(11)

where the i values are Lagrange multipliers, which can be positive or negative now due to the equality constraints. The conditions for optimality are given by

L = 0, L b = 0, L = 0, i L = 0 i
Defining

= i yi ( xi )
i =1

y
i =1 i

=0

(12)

i = i yi [ T ( xk ) + b] 1 + i = 0

1v = [1;1; ;1], y = [ y1; y2 ; ; yl ] , = [1 ; 2 ; ; l ] , = [1; 2 ; ; l ] , and eliminating the variables

and , one obtains the following linear KKT system:

Z T = [( x1)T y1;L;( xl )T yl ]

0 y

b 0 = + I / lv yT

(13)

where I R l l denotes a unit matrix, = Z T Z , and the kernel trick can be applied within the matrix, namely

ij = yi y j(xi )T (x j ) = yi y j K(xi , x j ), i, j = 1,2, , l

(14)

Figure 2. Part images from ORL face database

Solving the above equations, then the resulting LS-SVM model for classification becomes

l y ( x ) = sign i yi K ( x, x j ) + b i =1

(15)
Original image Coarse Detail1 Detail2 Fine

Based on the above classification model, the unknown

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Figure 3.

A result of curvelet transform for a facial image

V. CONCLUSION As a means of biometric technique, face recognition has been studied diligently for more than 30 years now and has emerged as one of the most successful applications of image analysis. Feature extraction is a key step prior to face recognition. To reduce the features dimensionality and better represent the main features of facial image, many methods have been developed. As a latest multiresolution analysis method, curvelet transform has improved directional elements with anisotropy and better ability to represent sparsely edges and other singularities along curves. But, not much work has been done to explore the potential of curvelet transform to solve pattern recognition problems. In the domain of pattern recognition, Support Vector Machine (SVM) is an ideal nonlinear classification tool nowadays. In this paper, a face recognition system based on curvelet transform and Least Square Support Vector Machine (LS-SVM) has been developed, which uses curvelet transform to extract features from facial images first, and then uses LS-SVM to classify facial images based on features. The proposed method has been evaluated by carrying out experiments on the well-known ORL databases. The results show that the correct recognition rate is up to 96%, and the computational speed is faster. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The authors gratefully acknowledge the support of the science and technology research program of Jiangxi Provincial Department of Education, China (Project No. [2007]277).

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