Analysis of variance of Gabor filter banks parameters for optimal face recognition

Gabor filter banks constitute a very robust tool to extract discriminant information from a visual scene. After the now “classical” bank with 5 frequencies and 8 orientations proposed by Lades et al. and Wiskott et al., many other parametrizations of a Gabor filter bank have appeared. In order to find the optimal parametrization for a face recognition experiment, we have performed a 6-way analysis of variance of Gabor parameters using FERET, FRAV2D, FRAV3D, FRGC and XM2VTS face databases, including frontal and turned poses, facial expressions, occlusions and changes of illumination. Considering independent criteria to find the optimal Gabor filter bank, the bank with the highest recognition rate was found to have 6 frequencies and narrower Gaussian widths in the space domain. These results were obtained with Mahalanobis distance for a k-NN classifier, with analytical and holistic Gabor feature vectors. Moreover about 20% of the banks studied here obtained in average a better performance than the classical bank. For most of the databases considered, the highest recognition rates have been achieved with analytical representations (frontal images, images with turns or occlusions), with a holistic preponderance for images with gestures or changes of illumination. The inferiority found for holistic Gabor representations versus their analytical counterparts can be explained for the intrinsic redundancy and the size of the feature vectors of this kind of representation.

► We analyse the optimal Gabor filter bank parametrization for face recognition.
► Up to 486 Gabor banks have been studied with an analysis of variance approach.
► Five face databases were considered: FERET, FRAV2D, FRAV3D, FRGC and XM2VTS.
► The classical bank with 5 frequencies and 8 orientations ranked at position 38.
► Six frequencies and narrower Gaussian widths outperform the classical bank.