title: Facial Recognition with Kinect
body: <p>Lately I have been working on trying facial recognition with the Kinect, using the new Developer Toolkit (v1.5.1). The API for the FaceTracking tools can be found here: <a href="http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj130970.aspx" rel="nofollow noreferrer">http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj130970.aspx</a>. Basically what I have tried to do so far is attain a "facial signature" unique to each person. To do this, I referenced these facial points the Kinect tracks: (<img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/PfToH.png" alt="http://i.msdn.microsoft.com/dynimg/IC584330.png">) .  </p>
  
  <p>Then I tracked my face (plus a couple friends) and calculated the distance between points 39 and 8 using basic algebra. I also attained the values for the current depth of the head. Heres a sample of the data I obtained:</p>
  
  <pre><code>DISTANCE FROM RIGHT SIDE OF NOSE TO LEFT EYE: 10.1919198899636
  CURRENT DEPTH OF HEAD: 1.65177881717682
  DISTANCE FROM RIGHT SIDE OF NOSE TO LEFT EYE: 11.0429381713623
  CURRENT DEPTH OF HEAD: 1.65189981460571
  DISTANCE FROM RIGHT SIDE OF NOSE TO LEFT EYE: 11.0023324541865
  CURRENT DEPTH OF HEAD: 1.65261101722717
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>These are just a few of the values I attained. So my next step was plotting them using excel. My expected result was a very linear trend between depth and distance. Because as depth increases, the distance should be smaller and vice versa. So for person X's data the trend was fairly linear. But for my friend (person Y) the plot was all over the place. So I came to conclude that I can't use this method for facial recognition. I cannot get the precision I need to track such a small distance. </p>
  
  <p>My goal is to be able to identify people as they enter a room, save their "profile", and then remove it upon once they exit. Sorry if this was a bit much, but I'm just trying to explain the progress I have made thus far. SO, what do you guys think about how I can implement facial recognition? Any ideas/help will be greatly appreciated.</p>