Identical Twins and Recognition.

Post No 14:
Human Face >> Science >> Biology >> Genetics

Identical Twins are not clones but result of single fertilized egg splitting into two separate embryos. In scientific terms it is referred as monozygomatic. 

It becomes very difficult to identify subtle differences that differentiates mirror like individual. If you really want to stress your identification skills then you must visit Twins Days Festival in Twinsburg, Ohio. 
Facial variation in genetically identical twins can be exaggerated by engaging them in separate environmental conditions.

http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2012/01/twins/schoeller-photography#/1

A famous book Identical: Portraits of Twins By Martin Schoeller (Author) 

Curious mind raises many questions such as, Can Biometrcs ID an Identical Twin?

But it is found that sometimes many twin faces confound various Facial Recognition software. The best performing algorithm has 17-18 percent equal error rate which should be  under 5 percent. Still, Scientists are studying relentlessly to solve this riddle. One of the paper is "Analysis of Facial Features in Identical Twins" by Brendan Klare, Alessandra A. Paulino, and Anil K. Jain. 

Although, Close friends and even Mom and Dad can be duped by their identical twins, But interesting fact is they can't dupe dogs? and they also have different fingerprints. Also, as identical twins get older, generally more differences in physical characteristics develop. 

Quote by Pablo Picasso - Part 2

Post No: 13

Continuing from the Blog-Post : Quote by Pablo Picasso - Part 1
Picasso was an artist that groomed in the classical tradition then influenced contemporary art his svelte manner using wide range of styles. Emphatic strokes, harsh vivid colors in his artworks exhibits his insatiable desires, volcanic energy and revolting attitude. As Picasso said, "I paint objects as I think them, not as I see them."

Picasso asks, "Who sees the human face correctly: the Photographer, the mirror or the painter?"
I see deep meaning in this quote but before that we must construe his thoughts hidden in his self-portraits.

Self-portrait with Uncombed Hair (1896)

Self Portrait: "Yo Picasso" (spring 1901)

Self-portrait "Yo" (summer 1901)

Self-portrait with Cloak (late 1901)

Self-portrait with a Palette (1906)

Self-portrait (1907)

Self Portrait Facing Death” (1972) 

The series of self-portraits and other creative works of Picasso reflects revolt in his mind in various guises, disguises and eventually emerging his grand persona.  

What my mind could see by observing these autobiographical portraits and understand by his colloquial writing is something like this.
Mirror reflects all the details and triggers our self-awareness. For the same reason invention of mirror triggered our attention towards face and makeup. In spite of that we perceive very few facts of our face. Our Mind observes only what interests us. We can neither associated memory nor emotions with reflection as it is a momentary glimpse. 
Cameras can imprint snapshot of the moment, thus a photograph may establish eternal connection with intense emotions, drama involved in that particular situation. It all depends on cameraman to delineate subject with dramatic lighting. Although Camera cannot peep into the emotional conflicts in the mind of subject. 
A painter has freedom of thought which can be expressed using media. He can depict his views, feelings about subject in his own manner. Obviously, Painter illustrates whole drama where canvas becomes his stage, eloquent strokes becomes expressions and colors reveals emotions.

Spotlight: Attractive faces are average faces

Post No: 12 

Average Women faces in different countries by FaceResearch.org.

Image credit: http://9gag.com/

FaceResearch lab run by Ben Jones and Lisa DeBruine,  is based in the Institute of Neuroscience and Psychology at the University of Glasgow, has published results of experiments on Facial Attractiveness. 
The concept of average faces was initially tossed in the 1800s by Sir Francis Galton who created composite images of faces by projecting face photographs of many different individuals onto a single piece of photographic film. Now with the advent of technology scientists are experimenting with digital composites, photographs aligned by pupils position followed by standardizing face position.
In "Facial Shape and judgments of female attractiveness" paper submitted by D. I. Perrett, K.A. May and S. Yoshikawa, found out that highly attractive faces are systematically different in shape from average. the similarity of attractive facial characteristics across two cultures is consistent with the claim that such characteristics are functionally significant. 

Quote by Pablo Picasso - Part 1

Post No: 11

Pablo Picasso was one of the most influential artists that started from Classicism and later turned to Surrealism. Picasso's style passed through many phases, from blue period to rose period to cubism. 

Pls. check his quote written on brainboard.

what do you elicit from that?

Study of Human Face : Part II

Post No 11:
Human Face >> General Information

Continuing from Post No. 5 : Study of Human Face : Part I 
Most important virtue that separated man from other animals is curiosity. Man is curious to know everything about universe and wants to reveal the grandness of everything in the universe, right from dust upto stardust. He prevailed through countless endeavors. But, from millions of years till date man had and will strive for only one goal. i.e. "How to Make life easier!".

While interacting with surrounding man started observing behavior of each thing. In this process even a subtle usual behavior sparked wonder that adjured to perceive the reason behind it.
Still there are myriad things that wonder us and one of them is "Human Face".

At a very broad level, two cognitive approaches are art and science. 
To understand human face requires incredible artistic and scientific knowledge and much more. The ultimate goal is to understand and explain, describe, categorize, reproduce human face.

Art is subjective, based on emotions and synthesis of thoughts whereas science is rational, objective and analysis of thinking. Art deals with aesthetic pleasure without utilization value on the other hand science finds purpose in every action. Human face study was initiated by artists and then scientific analysis started in the renaissance. In 18th century with the revolutionary development in science emerged many diverse streams. There is immense information on human face scattered in different pockets of these new streams. 

Taxonomy is identification and documentation of every distinct component in diversity. At initial glance you may confront few confusing and ambiguous terms. There are many such terminologies used while stating theories about human face. For example: facial modeling, facial simulation, facial detection, facial identification, facial recognition, facial reconstruction, craniofacial reconstruction. Please bear with me, in upcoming posts I will discuss various topics and things will sort out and these terminologies will start making sense. But for now lets check the taxonomy of literature on human face. 

Taxonomy of Human Face Study based on Approach

Above table explains various streams from Art, Science and other activities which has documented enormous material on human face. After gathering the literature from each field, next natural step is to categorize and keep them connected with relevant rational liaisons for further collaboration. I strongly believe that in the absence of these liaisons knowledge-bases soon become effete information bloats. 
Please note the taxonomy string at top in this post. That's enough for now.

Thx for reading. Keep Sharing and give your comments on the blog.

Let every being be free from delusion and ignorance and face the truth.

What will be the future of Human Face?

Post No: 10 

Continuing from the post 7:  Evolving framework of Human Face 

James May answering few oddball questons

An interesting study was published by Artist and researcher Nickolay Lamm on Forbs site.

Today's human face is end result of 5-7 million years of evolution. It is very clear that as skull changed its shape face also morphed. If face of ape reflects rudimentary lifestyle, modern man face witnesses epic control over nature.

But What's next?

10000 years down the line how human face will look like?

Are we going to settle down on with existing features or we will modify it with according to future needs or whole human race will turn into Cyborgs?

Although it is a debatable topic. Post your comments and opinions.

Spotlight: FacePlus from Mixamo

Post No: 9 

Today spotlight is on FacePlus plugin from Mixamo for Unity3D game engine.
Game Industry is moving with fast pace. Now you can capture facial expression and apply it it any character.
Face Plus is a plugin that enables developers to create high quality 3D facial capture and facial animation, in real time, directly within the Unity game engine. Leveraging Unity’s blendshape technology and Mixamo’s unique facial tracking and facial animation algorithms, Face Plus empowers game developers to be even more ambitious with storytelling and bring compelling, emotionally rich characters to life in record time, at extremely low cost.

Virtual world will never be the same again !
Its changing....

Evolving framework of Human Face

Post No: 7 

Why Chimpanzees look like Humans? Is Human face is ever evolving surface?
Answer lies in prehistory, anthropology and archaeology. Let me explain in simple words.

Actually, Humans diverged and evolved from long lineage with its closest living relative, Chimpanzees.
Human face consists of multiple layers, hard solid bone, skull at base, muscles mounted at both ends on bones is the flexible and deformable layer, fascia surface, dermal-fatty layer variable tissue depth depends on health and environmental conditions and the top epidermal surface also called as skin. In simple words face is surface wrapped on skull, thus skull can be considered as the framework of face.

Although as late as the time of 'Charles Darwin', was common to find people who thought there was a independent creation of every species and life form do not change from one generation to another. But Darwin’s five theories suggested :

• Evolution: species come and go through time, while they exist they change.
• Common descent: organisms are descended from one, or several common ancestors and have diversified from this original stock
• Species multiply: the diversification of life involves populations of one species diverging until they become two separate species; this has probably occurred billions of times on earth!
• Gradualism: evolutionary change occurs through incremental small changes within populations; new species are not created suddenly.
• Natural selection: evolutionary change occurs through variation between individuals; some variants give the individual an extra survival probability.

Modern Humans are result of millions of years of evolutionary change and natural selection. 
Plan your visit to Smithsonian National Museum of natural History to have a look at preseved evidences of human origin.  

Image Credit: John Gurche
artist / Don Hurlbert, photographer

Sahelanthropus tchadensis

Sometime between 7 and 6 million years ago

Image Credit: Karen Carr Studio

Orrorin tugenensis

Sometime between 6.2 and 5.8 million years ago

Image Credit: Karen Carr Studio

Ardipithecus kadabba

Between about 5.8 and 5.2 million years ago

Image Credit: Karen Carr Studio

Ardipithecus ramidus

About 4.4 million years ago

Image Credit: Karen Carr Studio

Australopithecus anamensis

About 4.2 to 3.9 million years ago

Image Credit: John Gurche,
artist / Chip Clark, photographer

Australopithecus afarensis

Between about 3.85 and 2.95 million years ago

Image Credit: Karen Carr Studio

Australopithecus garhi

 About 2.5 million years ago

Image Credit: Karen Carr Studio

Paranthropus aethiopicus

About 2.7 to 2.3 million years ago

Image Credit: John Gurche,
artist / Chip Clark, photographer

Australopithecus africanus

About 3.3 to 2.1 million years ago

Image Credit: Karen Carr Studio

Homo rudolfensis

About 1.9 million to 1.8 million years ago

Image Credit: Karen Carr Studio

Australopithecus sediba


Between 1.977 and 1.98 million years ago

Image Credit: Karen Carr Studio

Homo habilis


2.4 million to 1.4 million years ago

Image Credit: Karen Carr Studio

Paranthropus robustus

About 1.8 to 1.2 million years ago

Image Credit: John Gurche,
artist / Chip Clark, photographer

Paranthropus boisei

About 2.3 to 1.2 million years ago

Image Credit: John Gurche,
artist / Chip Clark, photographer

Homo heidelbergensis


About 700,000 to 200,000 years ago

Image Credit: John Gurche,
artist / Chip Clark, photographer

Homo erectus

Between about 1.89 million and 143,000 years ago

Image Credit: John Gurche,
artist / Chip Clark, photographer

Homo neanderthalensis


About 200,000 - 28,000 years ago

Image Credit: John Gurche,
artist / Chip Clark, photographer

Homo floresiensis

About 95,000 – 17,000 years ago

Image Credit: Human Origins Program,
Smithsonian Institution

Homo sapiens

About 200,000 years ago to present

Following link shows the Human Family Tree and other variations of human faces.
http://humanorigins.si.edu/evidence/human-family-tree

Biology teacher Andrew Douch makes comparisions between the skull of an ancient Hominin (Australopithecus afarensis) and a modern hominin ( Homo sapiens)

But What's next?