Head pose estimation relying on appearance-based nose region analysis

In this paper we explore the possibilities of recognizing head orientation based on the appearance of the nose. We demonstrate that the features extracted from that region possess high discriminating power with regards to the head orientation. Extensive experimental validation study, performed using the benchmark data, confirmed high effectiveness of the proposed approach compared with the baseline techniques that rely on the analysis of the entire facial region. © Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2014.