Method, system and computer program for identification and sharing of digital images with face signatures

Abstract

Methods and systems are provided for sharing a digital image depicting one or more faces. The method may include linking a plurality of computer terminals to a computer network, each computer terminal associated with an individual; receiving a digital image at at least one of the computer terminals; executing a face recognition routine on the digital image, the face recognition routine detecting at least one face in the digital image, each detected face corresponding to a person, the face recognition routine recognizing at least one of the persons as being one of the individuals; and for each individual recognized in the digital image by the face recognition routine, initiating dissemination of the digital image to the computer terminal associated with respective individual whose face is recognized in the digital image.

1 . A method for recognizing one or more faces in a digital image, the method comprising:
 enabling a remote web browser, desktop application, or a mobile device to access a proxy server;   at the proxy server,
 receiving a digital image; 
 executing a face detection routine on the digital image involving: generating one or more face coordinates corresponding to one or more candidate regions for one or more faces; 
 executing a face recognition routine involving, for each of the one or more candidate regions for the one or more faces, generating a face signature using one or more projection images defined by the face coordinates; and comparing the face signature with one or more known face signatures to determine a distance value for each comparison, computing an aggregation of the distance values, determining a best match between the face signature and the known face signatures using the aggregated distance values and comparing the best match to a similarity threshold, the best match determining an identity corresponding to at least one of the one or more faces; and 
 making available results of the face recognition routine to the web browser, the desktop application or the mobile device; 
   wherein the face signature is generated by: translating, rotating, and scaling the candidate region to a normalized image; masking the normalized image to define a masked image wherein the face is isolated to a region; applying a contrast adjustment to the masked image.   
     
     
         2 . The method of  claim 1  comprising applying a histogram image equalization to each face signature. 
     
     
         3 . The method of  claim 1  comprising inserting the at least one stored portrait in a marketing image. 
     
     
         4 . The method of  claim 4  wherein the marketing image is an advertisement. 
     
     
         5 . The method of  claim 1  comprising:
 receiving a selection of at least one face to be suppressed; 
 masking the area co-ordinates corresponding to the location of the at least one face to be suppressed in the at least one digital image. 
 
     
     
         6 . The method of  claim 5  wherein the masking comprises overlaying a selected image over the area co-ordinate corresponding to the location of the at least one face to be suppressed. 
     
     
         7 . The method of  claim 6  comprising adjusting the selected image to correspond to size of the area co-ordinates to be masked. 
     
     
         8 . The method of  claim 6  comprising adjusting edges of the overlayed image to blend with image characteristics of the at least one digital image. 
     
     
         9 . The method of  claim 6  wherein the image characteristics may include one or more of color, intensity, brightness, and texture. 
     
     
         10 . The method of  claim 5  wherein the selection of the at least one face to be suppressed comprises a command to suppress a particular individual from being displayed in any digital image, the method comprising identifying any digital image comprising a face corresponding to the particular individual to be suppressed and flagging the identified digital images to mask the area co-ordinates corresponding to the location of the at least one face to be suppressed. 
     
     
         11 . The method of  claim 5  wherein the masking comprises applying a permanent mask to the digital image. 
     
     
         12 . The method of  claim 5  wherein the masking comprises modifying metadata of the digital image to cause the digital image to be masked when displayed. 
     
     
         13 . The method of  claim 1 , further comprising dissemination using a social network service or a photo storage site to share the digital image with the one or more computer terminals associated with the one or more persons. 
     
     
         14 . The method of  claim 1 , further comprising the at least one computer device receiving a list of known persons and an electronic address for each person in the list of known persons, the face recognition routine recognizing comprising identifying the one or more persons whose faces are depicted in the digital image as one of the known persons in the list of known persons and using the electronic address for the known person of the list of known persons for a sharing routine. 
     
     
         15 . The method of  claim 1 , further comprising defining a peer group, recognizing a face of a member of the peer group within the digital image, queuing the digital image to be transmitted in a secure fashion to the member of the peer group. 
     
     
         16 . The method of  claim 1 , further comprising loading a list of known persons from a social network or photo storage site for disseminating the digital image to a person of the list of known persons when the person is in the list of the one or more persons whose faces are depicted in the digital image. 
     
     
         17 . A method for sharing a digital image depicting one or more faces, the method comprising:
 enabling a remote web browser, desktop application, or a mobile device to access a proxy server;   at the proxy server,
 receiving a digital image; 
 executing a face detection routine and a face recognition routine on the digital image, the face detection routine involving generating one or more face coordinates corresponding to one or more candidate regions for one or more faces; the face recognition routine producing a list of one or more persons whose faces are depicted in the digital image, by for each of the one or more candidate regions, generating a face signature using one or more projection images defined by the face coordinates, comparing the face signature with one or more known face signatures to determine a distance value for each comparison, determining a best match between the face signature and the known face signatures and comparing the best match to a similarity threshold, the best match determining an identity of a person in the list of one or more persons corresponding to at least one of the one or more faces; and enabling the proxy server to initiate a sharing routine for disseminating the digital image to computer terminals associated with the one or more persons, wherein the face signature is generated by: translating, rotating, and scaling the candidate region to a normalized image; masking the normalized image to define a masked image wherein the face is isolated to a region; applying a contrast adjustment to the masked image. 
   
     
     
         18 . The method claimed in  claim 17 , wherein the remote web browser, the desktop application, or the mobile device is linked to a processing engine, wherein the processing engine: scans one or more local or remote file folders such that the processing engine determines when the digital image is linked to one of the file folders; initiates, at the proxy server, the face detection routine and the face recognition routine on the digital image; and links a result of the face recognition routine to a database. 
     
     
         19 . The method claimed in  claim 18 , wherein another or the same computer terminal is also linked to a user interface enabling an individual to link the digital image to one of the file folders. 
     
     
         20 . A computer device for recognizing one or more faces in a digital image, the device comprising: a storage device receiving and storing a digital image; at least one proxy server configured to execute a face detection routine and a face recognition routine, the face detection routine involving generating one or more face coordinates corresponding to one or more candidate regions for one or more faces; the face recognition routine involving, for each of the one or more candidate regions, generating a face signature using one or more projection images defined by the face coordinates, comparing the face signature with one or more known face signatures to determine a distance value for each comparison, determining a best match between the face signature and the known face signatures and comparing the best match to a similarity threshold, the best match determining an identity corresponding to at least one of the one or more faces, and making available results of the face recognition routine, wherein the face signature is generated by: translating, rotating, and scaling the candidate region to a normalized image; masking the normalized image to define a masked image wherein the face is isolated to a region; applying a contrast adjustment to the masked image.