Face Recognition

An interesting article in the nerdy news today about computer face-recognition. Look on www.MyHeritage.com for details, and on http://www.saynotocrack.com/index.php/2006/10/23/celebrity-look-a-likes-part-i/ for the article.
Put up a photo of your face and it will compare it to a list of celebrities to see who you look like. Someone tried it with some 3D animated characters. This is one with the teletubby who seems to come off well by comparison.

The system works by comparing the face with a list of celebrities who have already been digitised. I tried the program using 2D characters but it doesn't work, but if it did, it seems to be a good way to find those elusive cartoon characters who you can't remember the name for.

I wonder if the system might be extended to check movements such as walk-cycles. If it could then it might be able to guess someones age, gender, height, weight, etc reasonably well by the way they move. That could be useful in looking for people in a crowd, a bit like spotting car numbers as they move. A step in that direction has already been made, which you can check out at http://www.3g.co.uk/PR/Jan2005/8955.htm.

Stan