A Video Database of Human Faces under Near Infra-Red Illumination for Human Computer Interaction Aplications

TL;DR

This paper introduces a new Near Infra-Red video database of human faces, designed to support the development and validation of HCI algorithms like face detection and gaze estimation under NIR illumination.

Contribution

The creation of a comprehensive NIR face video database with diverse subjects and conditions, filling a gap in resources for HCI algorithm development.

Findings

Database includes 60 subjects with varied expressions and orientations

Supports development of face detection, eye detection, and gaze tracking algorithms

Facilitates evaluation of HCI methods under NIR lighting conditions

Abstract

Human Computer Interaction (HCI) is an evolving area of research for coherent communication between computers and human beings. Some of the important applications of HCI as reported in literature are face detection, face pose estimation, face tracking and eye gaze estimation. Development of algorithms for these applications is an active field of research. However, availability of standard database to validate such algorithms is insufficient. This paper discusses the creation of such a database created under Near Infra-Red (NIR) illumination. NIR illumination has gained its popularity for night mode applications since prolonged exposure to Infra-Red (IR) lighting may lead to many health issues. The database contains NIR videos of 60 subjects in different head orientations and with different facial expressions, facial occlusions and illumination variation. This new database can be a very valuable resource for development and evaluation of algorithms on face detection, eye detection, head tracking, eye gaze tracking etc. in NIR lighting.