Pairwise feature learning with boosting for use in face detection

摘要

Systems and methods for training an AdaBoost based classifier for detecting symmetric objects, such as human faces, in a digital image. In one example embodiment, such a method includes first selecting a sub-window of a digital image. Next, the AdaBoost based classifier extracts multiple sets of two symmetric scalar features from the sub-window, one being in the right half side and one being in the left half side of the sub-window. Then, the AdaBoost based classifier minimizes the joint error of the two symmetric features for each set of two symmetric scalar features. Next, the AdaBoost based classifier selects one of the features from the set of two symmetric scalar features for each set of two symmetric scalar features. Finally, the AdaBoost based classifier linearly combines multiple weak classifiers, each of which corresponds to one of the selected features, into a stronger classifier.