Automating the Processes Involved in Facial Composite Production and Identification

• Published in: 2009 Symposium on Bio-inspired Learning and Intelligent Systems for Security pp. 35 - 42
• Main Authors: Frowd, C., Petkovic, A., Nawaz, K., Bashir, Y.
• Format: Conference Proceeding
• Language: English
• Published: IEEE 01-08-2009
• Subjects: Africa; automation; crime; EvoFIT; facial composite; Facial features; Intelligent systems; Interconnected systems; Law enforcement; Production systems; Psychology; Security; Shape; Spatial databases; witness
• DOI: 10.1109/BLISS.2009.15
• ISBN: 0769537545; 1424446333; 9780769537542; 9781424446339

Bringing a criminal to justice is a labour intensive process. In the current paper, we explored ways of reducing police time when constructing and identifying facial composites. In the former, we designed and evaluated a standalone version of the EvoFIT composite system. This was found to perform similarly to the full system that normally requires several hours of a police officer's time. In the latter, we built a small database of composites that could be used to search for matching identities. It was found that pixel intensity (texture) information was valuable for composites produced from a traditional feature-based system, but feature shape information for composites produced from the recognition-based EvoFIT. The results show promise for the automated construction and identification of facial composites.