Statistically rigorous age progression for the identification of missing persons

参与寻找失踪人员的人必须依赖他们在失踪前拍摄的图像。对于失踪的成年人来说，这不是一个太大的问题，因为他们的外表不会发生根本的变化。然而，孩子们可能已经变得面目全非。这个项目的目的是开发一种让面部图像老化的方法，让失踪的孩子现在的样子有一个逼真的印象。如果成功，该系统将对寻找失踪儿童的工作起到重大推动作用：它将以当前成本的一小部分快速而简单地提供准确的图像。该项目将开发可用于老化面部图像的算法，即逐步解决问题的程序。这些研究将基于邓迪大学将在儿童发育的两个关键阶段进行的面部变异研究，以及肯特大学现有的面部数据档案。该项目将受益于国家失踪人员求助热线(NMPH)和VisionMetric的密切互动和指导，VisionMetric是一家在开发法医成像应用程序方面拥有丰富商业经验的公司。该项目的最终结果将是一个可以在标准硬件和互联网上使用的软件系统。然而，要达到这一阶段，将有一系列项目阶段：汇编和注释跨越两个主要发展阶段的儿童脸部照片数据库(在Dundee)开发面容的综合统计模型(在Kent)开发特定人的年龄转换技术(在Dundee和Kent)开发这些技术使其快速和用户友好，以便它们可用于实际或商业开发(在Kent)软件系统的实际实施(在Kent，涉及VisionMetric、NMPH和大都会警察局)

People involved in trying to find missing persons have to depend upon images of them taken before they disappeared. For missing adults, this is not too great a problem, as their appearance will not have changed radically. However, children may have changed out of all recognition. The aim of this project is to develop a way of 'ageing' a facial image to give a realistic impression of what the missing child will look like now. If successful, the system will be a major boost to the work of those locating missing children: it will provide accurate images rapidly and simply at a fraction of the current cost.The project will develop algorithms, or step-by-step problem-solving procedures, that can be used to age a facial image. These will be based on studies of facial variation in children over two critical stages in their development which will be undertaken at Dundee University, and from existing face data archives held at the University of Kent. The project will benefit from having very close interaction and guidance from the National Missing Persons Helpline (NMPH) and VisionMetric, a company that has a good deal of commercial experience in developing forensic imaging applications.The final outcome of the project will be a software system that can be used on standard hardware and over the Internet. To get to this stage, however, there will be a series of project stages:Compiling and annotating a photographic database of children's faces spanning two main developmental phases (at Dundee)Developing a comprehensive statistical model of facial appearance (at Kent)Developing person-specific age transformation techniques (at Dundee and Kent)Developing these techniques to make them quick and user-friendly, so that they can be used for practical or commercial development (at Kent)Practical implementation of the software system (at Kent, involving VisionMetric, NMPH and the Metropolitan Police)